


Reunification

by DunkinLove



Series: Beyond the Wall [4]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: 1980s, Cold War, F/M, Family Secrets, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Gen, Spies & Secret Agents, Unfinished, abandoned
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-07-23 20:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7479690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DunkinLove/pseuds/DunkinLove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1989, a young woman unwittingly uncovers her family's secrets. </p><p>A continuation from <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5238257/chapters/12082670">The Other Side</a></p><p><b>Update</b>: This work has been Abandoned, but there is a synopsis of the intended ending in the bottom notes of chapter 12.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pressure, pushing down on me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ana refuses to listen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was inspired by some other authors on this thread (namely the wonderful edenforest) to create a [aesthetic board for this series](http://nostalgicexpatriate.tumblr.com/tagged/fic-aesthetic), to help you visualise what is going on a little bit...be warned some of the pics may be considered spoilery....but if you want to just see Part 1, you can do so [here.](http://nostalgicexpatriate.tumblr.com/post/152523504045/yet-another-aesthetic-board-for-my-tmfu-future-fic)

October 1989  
Oxford, UK 

Ana Teller awoke with a start when the alarm clock rattled violently on the nightstand against her lamp and the several half empty glasses that somehow accumulate throughout the week. She shot out a hand from under the covers slapping blindly until there was a satisfying final 'ding' and the room plunged back into silence.

She groaned underneath the duvet. She really didn't want to get up, the pleasant warmth of last night's cheap whiskey having deteriorated into a splitting headache. She had no one to blame but herself for that however...or for registering for an 8 a.m. lecture.

Ana got up and staggered to her en-suite bathroom and into the shower. She stood for a moment, letting the hot water wash over her, dulling the worst effects of her hangover. She mentally went over the items on her agenda for the day; her lectures, a visit to her tutor, editing her latest article, packing for her upcoming trip.

Stepping out of the shower and wrapping herself in a towel Ana remembered the other meeting on her schedule for the afternoon. She sighed just thinking about it as she returns to her room. As though reading her mind, a voice from underneath the covers chimed in. 

"Remember, don't let him talk you out of it," the voice mumbled.

"Trust me I won't," she replied, riffling through one of her overflowing drawers.

"And if your mother finds out...?" the voice asked.

"I'm going to be long gone before she finds out," Ana said as she fishes out a pair of jeans from a pile of questionably clean laundry.

"Good, but never underestimate the fury of a German mother," he yawned, propping himself up on his elbows, brown hair mussed appealingly as he watches her dress. "She might hunt you down anyway."

Ana smiled. He was one to know. German born and raised in West Berlin, Tobias and Ana had quickly connected on their shared heritage. Ana had found she had much more in common with the European students at Oxford as opposed to her fellow Brits, most of whom came from a level of society she had difficulty identifying with. She and a group of continentals had become fast friends over the years, and, in the case of Tobias, more than friends.

"She can murder me when we get back. If she ever wants to speak to me again that is," Ana wasn't so sure she would.

"She'll come around," Tobias reassured, but he didn't know Gaby as well as Ana did.

Ana nodded nonetheless and finished dressing before heading over to the bed to give him a quick kiss. She narrowly avoided his playful attempt to pull her back in.

"I'm going to be late," she laughed, "I'll see you tonight. Don't forget to pack!"

"I won't. Tschüss," he said, collapsing back on the bed.

She grabbed her Walkman from the dresser and shoved it into her messenger bag with her books, notepad and camera before heading down the echoing stairwell and out the door.

It was a crisp autumn morning in Oxford, but already the town was coming to life with students, professors and researchers making their way through the cobbled streets on foot and bike. She resisted the urge to take out her camera when the morning light was just right. She _was_ going to be late if she stopped and she already had at least a hundred pictures of these buildings and streets. Her flat was positively littered with glossy photos; loose on every surface, pinned to cork-board or hastily shoved in countless incomplete albums. She estimated she spent more money on film throughout the year than food.

While photography may be her passion outside of university, her degree was in linguistics, and was the subject of her sometimes pesky lectures. Ana had grown up speaking both German and English in the home and she had quickly picked up French and some Latin in school. She had become fascinated by languages, their structure and how they evolved. She had even decided to challenge herself by learning new ones, more distantly related than the rest, considering Farsi and Japanese when she first arrived at uni.

 _Why not Russian?_ her uncle had suggested, _It could be useful if you want to be a journalist_. After all, that was her goal. So for the past three years she had thrown herself into her studies, dabbling in photography and writing for the student newspaper on the side, with lessons in Russian thrown in to thoroughly destroy any chances of downtime. It had been an exhausting venture but she was finally beginning to feel like she was about to go somewhere with her future career.

If only her home life were going as smoothly, she thought. 

She pushed the concern out of her mind when she arrived at the lecture theatre. There would be more than enough opportunity to discuss it during her looming afternoon meeting.

__

Ana entered the smoky old pub, the dark wood warmth welcoming her in from the drizzling rain on the street. At 3 p.m. the only patrons are some pensioner bar flies and a group of academics speaking quietly in the snug by the front door.

She made herself comfortable in a booth as she waited. She didn't know why she agreed to this meeting, knows it will only end with a stalemate and perhaps a grudge that would take months to wear off. She decided to indulge in some liquid courage to ease the impending awkwardness nonetheless.

The front door swung open and her uncle spotted her, shaking off his umbrella and striding over to her with his colourful confidence that seemed so misplaced in the hallowed and reserved atmosphere of this town. 

"Ana," he said, his voice carrying across the room.

She let him kiss her cheek before he sat opposite her in the booth.

"You're looking well. How's college treating you?" he asked, flashing her his practiced smile, that made his aged face still surprisingly handsome.

"Let's just get to it," Ana cut him off. She wasn't in the mood for his faux pleasantries.

"I'm not sure I follow, I just want to catch up with my favourite niece while I'm in London," he said with mock offense.

She rolled her eyes. "Don't patronise me, I know why you're here."

"And why's that?" he tested. His smooth facade faded and suddenly he's the man that Ana knows, the one so few actually saw; cynical but droll, and more than a little bit exhausted for all his years of rootlessness. 

"She sent you," Ana said crossing her arms. "Now, I don't know if it's to try to convince me to do something or if she is just too... _German_ to tell me she's upset to my face-"

"She hasn't told me to do anything..." he claimed.

Ana didn't buy that for an instant.

She humoured him. "But...?"

"But I heard you two were feuding and are now refusing to speak to each other," he said with a slightly accusatory tone.

"We're not feuding, we just need...a little distance," she explained.

"What happened?" he asked, feigning ignorance. He was a good liar, but Ana knew him well, and she was certain he already knew the reason behind the tension between Ana and her mother.

"Hardly anything. She just wanted to discuss a topic I have no interest delving into," she shrugged.

"And what's that?"

"Things about her past that she somehow thinks affect me now, at twenty-one, when in truth, I couldn't care less," she said lightly, indulging in the pint in front of her.

"So you just flat-out refused to listen to her?" Napoleon chided. 

"I did," Ana replied, voice clipped. "This must be terribly shocking to both of you, but I am an adult. I can make my own decisions and determine what is best for me, and right now, the best thing for me is not to be dragged into some mess that happened over twenty years ago."

"She's just trying to be transparent with you," he explained with a calmness that made her blood boil. 

Ana pursed her lips. "Which would have been appreciated ten years ago, but now-" 

He held up his hand to quiet her. "And I think you owe your mother an apology," he added with an infuriating nod of finality.

Ana's hands tightened into fists under the table. "I owe _her_ an apology?" she hissed, barely resisting the urge to shout in his face. "I'm finally at peace with my life after years of being left in the dark with no answers to any of the questions that every child deserves to know the answers to. As soon as I've moved on she wants to dredge up those questions and address them _now_? How is that in any way fair to me? To my fucking sanity?"

"I don't think you have any idea what you are actively deciding to forgo..." her uncle warned.

"But it is my decision isn't it?"

"Yes," he relented with a huff, perhaps just now coming to terms that she was no longer the little girl he used to watch while her mother was away.

"Then let me decide," she demanded.

"Fine, you're the adult," he held up his hands in surrender, "but you should speak to your mother. It's not fair to her."

"I'm not the one giving the silent treatment. I'd be more than happy to move forward with her as normal after this," she claimed, "I'm going to be away for the coming week, but as soon as I'm-"

"Where exactly are you going?" he asked sternly. "This better not be another one of your brilliant ideas like that trip to Belfast."

Ana felt herself bristle with indignation.

In July Ana had embarked on a visit to Belfast to cover the Orange Walks during the annual marching season in Northern Ireland. She had found the short trip fascinating and to her immense pride, her photographs and interviews of young people on both sides the conflict were featured in the _Cherwell_ , Oxford's independent student newspaper. Upon her return, however, her confidence had been torn apart after her mother berated her for the supposed stupidity of her actions. _Didn't you know you could've been killed? How could you have done something so reckless? Why don't you use your head for once?_

To add insult to injury, her uncle, the one adult in her life who had actively encouraged her adventurous nature, had backed her mother. Ana had no idea what she could've gotten herself into, he had said.

They still treated her like a child.

She squared her shoulders, refusing to be cowed, and preparing to plummet straight back into another argument.

"Berlin," she said sharply.

Her uncle didn't miss her evasiveness. "Which part of Berlin?"

"Both."

"And why would you be heading east of all places?"

Ana sighed, as though she were explaining a simple concept to a small child. "October seventh marks the fortieth anniversary of the GDR, there will be celebrations, but also demonstrations. Gorbachev will be there. It will be something worth seeing."

"More marching in parades then?" her uncle scoffed.

"I didn't march in any parades and I won't be in this one either," she defended.

"You can't be seriously contemplating this," he muttered, rubbing his brow, looking worn-out beyond his years.

"Why not? It's no worse than Belfast. Safer actually," she said. "Besides, things are changing rapidly over there. Every week more and more people are speaking out against oppression, demanding democratic elections and the freedom to travel. It's important that the world sees it and takes it seriously or they'll never-"

"Where does this need to _expose_ everything come from? And why do feel you have to get directly involved these...ordeals?!" he erupted with the frustration of a disappointed father which he most certainly was not.

"Why do you two think everything should be covered up?!" Ana shouted, drawing a look from the bartender and the two patrons the next table over. Ana wasn't even confident what they were arguing about anymore; her sometimes dangerous journalistic tendencies or her mother's past. It was all beginning to blend together.

She cleared her throat, and composed herself, shooting her uncle an irritated glare

"Have you told your mother about your plan?" he asks, calming himself as well.

"Of course not, but you're welcome to tell her," Ana replied acidly, "I'll be out of the country by the time she tries to find me." She looks at the clock above the bar, "I have to go."

A small part of her hates leaving like this. At one time her uncle had been one of the closest people in her life and she even aspired to be as careless and confident as he used to be, but now his growing conservatism had put a wedge in their once warm relationship. 

She stands to leave regardless.

"Ana," he said, grabbing her wrist before she could walk out. He looked up at her sincerely, voice low, "I really think you should listen to what it is she has to tell you. If not right now, then when you are ready. Please just consider it."

If Ana was not mistaken there was the same hint of desperation in his eyes as she had seen in her mothers', and it does nothing but irritate her. Where was this when it had actually mattered to her?

She pulled her arm away.

"I'll see you when I get back,"  
___

After her last lecture of the day, Ana tread home through the lashing rain. She hadn't been able to concentrate on one word the lecturer had said, her mind a confused mess of stressful conversations stuck on repeat. 

She may be an adult but she hated being alienated from her family and whether she would admit it to herself or not, she was still very much dependent on their approval and support. Having those structures removed left her feeling adrift and powerless. She wished she could go back to how things had been before her mother had brought up the topic of her estranged father.

Around the time of her twenty-first birthday, Ana had noticed a pronounced change in her mother's usually reserved and composed manner. She became increasingly agitated in Ana's presence, always on the brink of saying something but pulling back at the the final moment. In turn it left Ana feeling restless, as though she were standing at the edge of a dark precipice, waiting to be pushed in.

Then her mother had gathered the courage to finally approach her, much to Ana's dismay.

"I have something I want to tell you," her mother had announced quietly one evening several weeks ago.

Without her even needing to ask for clarification, Ana had intrinsically known what her mother wanted to discuss. It was a topic she had hoped to avoid indefinitely, but which her mother wasn't going to let her silently side-step any longer. 

"About my father," she confirmed coolly.

Her mother nodded and Ana sighed, preparing herself for the discomfort of the impending onslaught.

Ana had decided several years ago that her paternity didn't matter. Her childhood fantasies of her father being a secret aristocrat or dashing vagabond had become jaded as she matured. She had slowly come to the conclusion that she must have been the result of some careless party with a co-worker in the 'swinging sixties' or a doomed affair with a married man...and while as a teen it had bothered her, adulthood had taught her that she was her own person and the mistakes of her parents had no bearing on her value as an individual.

She shrugged it off as best she could. Ana had gotten this far without a father in her life, and she had done pretty damn well. If she were being truly honest with herself, a small part of her secretly liked sticking it to him like that, as petty as it sounded. Ana wasn't interested in processing the baggage of the details. It was water under the bridge as far as she was concerned, but convincing her mother of that was going to be a challenge.

"When you were younger I promised I would tell you anything you wanted to know, when you were old enough. You're more than old enough now..." her mother swallowed nervously, barely meeting her eye, "But you never ask anymore and I wanted-"

"I don't ask because I don't care anymore," Ana admitted flatly.

"How can you say that?" Her mother said, taken aback. She even had the audacity to look hurt at Ana's words. Ana couldn't fathom any reason why her mother would feel protective of someone who hadn't even made the effort to contact his daughter for himself. 

"Fairly easily. Why would I feel the need to know more about someone who has had absolutely no presence in or impact on my life?" she asked honestly.

"I'm offering to tell you everything, and maybe if you let me you would understand why things happened the way they did!"

"I don't want to hear the excuses-" Ana groaned.

"They're not excuses!"

"Aren't they? What if your father had come to Berlin when you were twenty-one, begged you to understand why he left and then expected you to just forget everything and be his daughter again?"

That gave her mother pause. It was clearly a comparison she had never seriously considered. Gaby had contemplated the question for a moment, before shrugging and admitting, "I would have told him ' _Verpiss dich_ , get lost'."

"Exactly, so why are you expecting me to behave any differently?!" Ana demanded.

"The situation is not the same Ana, if you'd just...let me explain so that you can decide-" her mother pleaded, a hint of desperation in her voice, tears threatening to spill over.

It had been years since Ana had seen her in such a state. She could only recall her mother crying in front of her one time, when Ana had been no more than seven or eight. Recently returned from a weekend away, Gaby had gathered her half-asleep daughter in her arms and cried for what felt like ages at the time. Ana never knew the reason behind the breakdown but now she had her suspicions. The memory solidified Ana's decision even further, but she couldn't help but feel a flash of sympathy for her mother.

"You don't need to explain anything Mum," Ana said, calming her temper and softening at her mother's hurt expression, "and I don't care who it was or why it happened because none of it matters anymore...we had each other and that's all we needed." She smiles and corrects, "We _have_ each other, and I don't see any reason why we should change that."

Her mother swallows, trying in vain to control her emotions. 

"You don't want to know?" she finally said, seeking confirmation but clearly hoping for denial.

"I don't want to know," Ana stated, absolute in her choice.

Her mother nodded, lips tightening. She blinked a little too hard and sent tears rolling down her cheeks.

" _Mama_ ," Ana whispered, opening her arms and hugging her mother, " _ich liebe dich_. Please don't be sad. We'll be okay."

Her mother nodded again against her neck. Her raw emotions tore Ana's heart apart but she would remain resolute. She didn't want to know, and insofar as she was concerned, she had every right to feel that way.

Despite their reconciliation at the end of the night, morning brought a new austerity between the two women. Ana had left to return to Oxford with little more than a half-hearted 'goodbye' from her mother. Days passed without Gaby calling for her regular check-in, and any conversations between them were clipped and purely perfunctory. It infuriated Ana, who felt her mother was punishing her for a decision that she made for Ana when she was born. 

If she wanted to choose a memory over her own blood then Ana would let her. What the hell did she care?

When Ana returned to her flat, she threw herself into packing for Berlin. She piled clothes and film and notebooks into her bag, zipping it up with an angry decisiveness. Before heading out the door to stay at Tobias' place for the night she considered her mother's necklace on the dresser. It had always proven to be good luck, Ana rationalised. There was no harm in taking it. 

She slipped the necklace on when the phone rings. Ana watched it gravely before shaking herself and heading out the door. From the stairwell she heard it ring again, before she slipped out into the night and set her sights on Berlin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ana was very stupid to go to Belfast for marching season as an Englishwoman during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Gaby/Napoleon's reactions are very reasonable.


	2. My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ana experiences life in East Berlin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies as this is a MONSTER of a chapter and it will get very OC / historical event heavy. It's a little unavoidable, but just bear (bare?) with me as I set the scene / get things in motion! 
> 
> *Advanced warning for some descriptions of police brutality.*

7 October 1989  
Berlin, East Germany 

Ana had never seen anything like it in her life. Of course, she had seen such things on the news and even re-made in Hollywood films but there was no substitute for being physically present at a socialist propaganda parade bombastically celebrating the glory of the proletariat and the republic. If one didn't look too hard into the underlining message of such an event, Ana thought, you could almost convince yourself that it had an austere beauty to it.

Tanks, missile vehicles and military light trucks rumbled past in a seemingly endless procession as Ana and Tobias watched from the crowds lining the wide monumental boulevard of Karl-Marx Allee in East Berlin. They had arrived in West Berlin the previous evening and crossed over to the east earlier that morning at Checkpoint Charlie. The border guards were already turning away western journalists wanting to document the event. Even the authorities lacked faith in the success of the GDR's 40th Anniversary Celebrations. Rumor had it several events had been abandoned and speakers had turned down their invitations. The writing was on the wall for East Germany, and they would prefer that it wasn't advertised to the rest of the world.

Luckily, Ana had slipped by under the guise of a student visiting the family of her _Wessi_ boyfriend. It was all true, for the most part. 

They had ended up near the parade's bandstand which was building to an ear-drum rattling crescendo. As cheerful and triumphant as the music was there was no mistaking what the parade's underlying purpose was; intimidation. Blatant intimidation targeted at the state's enemies and, not so inconspicuously, its own people. 

The tri-colour flags with their hammer and compass snapped in the wind above their heads. The crowd was an odd mix of dutifully patriotic party members and supporters waving smaller flags and unengaged bystanders, looking on equivocally. You'd have to be both blind and deaf to miss the undertone of dissatisfaction and resentment permeating through the people who were present. Ana found it all unnerving, as though she were watching a powder-keg being placed within inches of an open flame. 

'ES LEBE DIE DEUTSCHE DEMOKRATISCHE REPUBLIC UNSER SOZIALISTISCHES VATERLAND!**' the bright red banner read triumphantly above the band. Ana wasn't optimistic the republic would be so long lived if the previous months indicated anything. The USSR, bogged down with its own social and economic changes, was rapidly withdrawing assistance to and influence on its satellite nations. They were free to enact reforms as they saw fit without intervention from the Soviet government. Hungary had already ceased to maintain its section of the Iron Curtain, leaving an open gap to the West. East Germany and its totalitarian Socialist Unity Party, however, was digging in its heels, refusing to modernise or listen to the demands of the people. 

Ana wedged her way to the front of the crowd and up against the fence that barricaded them in. She adjusted her camera lens to focus on the grandstands across the boulevard where the elite stood to watch the celebrations. She could clearly see Erich Honecker, East Germany's controversial leader, saluting stupidly at the passing motorcade, seemingly oblivious that his entire country was coming apart at the seams. Beside him, the Soviet Head of State and guest of honour, Mikhail Gorbachev, looked on, polite but bored, subtly checking his watch. Ana snapped a photo of the Soviet leader and his entourage. Even they looked like they knew this ceremony was a complete farce of the grandest proportions. 

Tobias pushed through and came up beside her. 

"Did you catch them kissing?" Tobias shouted in her ear over the sound of the blasting trumpets.

Ana looked at him in confusion, unsure if he were serious or making a lewd joke.

Taking her expression as an invitation to elaborate, Tobias continued. "It's customary for socialist leaders to kiss on the mouth at events like this," he explained, as a massive anti-aircraft vehicle rolled past, "they call it the _Bruderkuss_ : 'fraternal kiss'."

Ana couldn't help but give a little laugh imagining two aging and serious communists lip-locking at a parade. 

Tobias took it to the next level: "Gorbi looks nice in that coat, I wonder if Comrade Honecker tried to slip a little tongue!"

"Tobi!" Ana hissed, elbowing him and repressing her own laughter. It was obnoxiously noisy where they were standing and unlikely anyone would overhear their conversation, but you could never be too sure in this place. The Stasi had more informants per capita than any other intelligence agency in history. Any one of the unsuspecting bystanders could be planted in the crowd to listen in on their peers and report any abuses or unusual behaviour. Ana would like to keep a wide berth of the state security while she was here. Their evening plans, however, would make that a little more difficult.

"We should get moving," Tobias whispered in her ear, reading her mind as he so often did, "Alexander will want to start getting things organised before we head out."

Ana nodded and took one final photo of the grandstands before disappearing back into the crowd. 

The pair walked away from the event, back toward the home of Tobias' cousins in Mitte. Tobias' father had left East Berlin in the late 1950's to attend university at the Freie Universität Berlin in West Berlin. His sister had stayed behind to care for their aging parents, and when the Wall was built the family was split in two, half residing in the communist east and the other in the western enclave. Subsequently, Tobias and his family would periodically cross over to visit their relatives in East Berlin, where his cousins, grandparents, aunt and uncle were trapped behind the Wall. The separation had had a significant impact on Tobias' worldview, his pacifism and his shared dream of a united Germany. 

Even though Gaby's mother had come from the East, meeting Tobias had made the reality of the east, west split more tangible to Ana. More human. It wasn't just the mysterious divide that her mother rarely addressed anymore. She wonders how different her life would have been had her mother never left Berlin, or whether Ana would have ever existed at all. If her mother had never left, would she ever have met Ana's father? - but she pushed that thought out of her head as quickly as it came. It didn't matter, she reminded herself.

"It's strange," she said as they walked along, "being on this side of the Wall. I've been to Berlin several times with my mum but we never crossed over."

"I don't suppose you would have," Tobias mused. He knew Ana's mother had defected years ago, before the Wall was built, and left no family behind.

"I remember once, when I was ten or eleven, I snuck out into the city on my own, I was so curious about the East I climbed part of the Wall to see what was on the other side."

"That was dangerous," Tobias said, shocked, "what happened?"

"Someone found me and told me to get down," she reminisced, "but I did get some good pictures," she said with pride.

"You and that old camera," Tobias laughed, shaking his head. He liked to make fun of her for using her 'old fashioned' equipment. It might be outdated technology, but she didn't have the heart to replace it. Beside, it still worked just fine.

"It wasn't the same one, but my mother got me this shortly thereafter," she said fondly patting the camera bag, but was quickly hit with a pang of regret when she remembered they were currently on bad terms. 

"To encourage your good behaviour, no doubt," Tobias smiled. 

"If only she knew at the time what she had started..." Ana laughed.

When they reached the home of Tobi's relatives, Ana was introduced to his cousins and uncle who greeted her with curious civility.

Alexander, the eldest cousin, was close in age to Tobias and shared his interest in social activism...or as the authorities and Alexander's father would call it; dissent. He was one of the main oragnisers for the evening's demonstration, and made a point of trying to get students and artists from outside the Iron Curtain involved; something that was made much easier by having a cousin from West Berlin. 

Tobi's younger cousin, Claudia, was only sixteen and was far more interested in meeting Ana than the other two.

"You're from London?" she asked almost immediately, her eyes alight.

"I am," Ana smiled politely.

"Have you ever met David Bowie?!"

"Claudia, there are millions of people in London," Alexander interrupted, "It's not just Ana and Bowie."

Claudia blushed at her brothers words, but looked at Ana expectantly nonetheless.

"I haven't met him," Ana admitted, "but I've been to one of his concerts."

"So have I!" Claudia exclaimed, "well...I _heard_ his concert, two years ago, when he played on the other side of the Wall near the Brandenburg Gate. He turned some of his speakers backward so we could listen too!"

Ana was both charmed by the evidence of how music can transcend borders but also saddened that there had to be a wall present in the first place. How unfair was it that a young person couldn't even attend a rock concert because the government had deemed it subversive?

"I really want to go to London someday," Claudia said wistfully. 

Ana wasn't sure how to respond when Claudia's father grumbled, "You have a better chance of going to the moon."

He wasn't altogether wrong, Ana thought. At the moment, both scenarios were equally unlikely, but change was in the air and they were here hoping to be a part of it. 

"Maybe you'll be able to go sooner than you think," Alex said to her, ignoring their father. 

"Good luck with that," his father laughed, "now get out of here. And I want all these signs out of my house!"

Ana, Tobi and Alex collected the various homemade signs and banners that Alex has amassed and left for the meeting point at Alexanderplatz. Claudia saw them off, a longing look in her eyes. 

"My father doesn't want Claudia getting involved in the demonstrations," Alex explained without Ana needing to ask. "He knows I'm a lost cause, but he still thinks he can protect her," he said as he lit a cigarette. 

"Believe it or not he used to be a bit of a delinquent himself," he went on, "back in '68 he did eighteen months for handing out a pamphlet about the Prague Spring. _One_ pamphlet, before he was caught, reported by the person he handed it to, and spent nearly two years in prison for it. Hasn't been able to get access to a decent job since."

"Well if you were to believe the ceremony today, everything in the east is going just swimmingly," Tobi joked. 

" _I_ can't believe you went to watch that bullshit," Alexander laughed, "but at least it's providing a good opportunity to show Gorbi what is really going on here."

That, after-all, was the intention of Alex's demonstration; to show the Soviet leader that despite giving the satellite nations a chance to reform and engage in _glasnost_ , openness, East Germany's government responded with hostility, and the people have had enough.

When they reached Alexanderplatz, hundreds had already gathered. It was an entirely different crowd from the one they had seen earlier in the day. The average age couldn't have been over twenty-five, the clothing more daring and modern and the music as far from a military marching band as one could get. It felt hopeful and alive.

As Alex went about his business of organising the demonstration, Tobi introduced Ana to some of his friends and acquaintances who, like them, had traveled to East Berlin explicitly to participate in the event.

"Over sixty-five thousand people showed up to Leipzig's rally last week," Lara, an excitable brunette from Potsdam commented, "It was like the entire city was there!"

"I'm surprised there's even that many people left in East Germany," her friend Andreas said. "Seems like the majority of people went on holiday to Hungary this summer and never came back."

"Never came back?" Ana asked.

"Nope. Gone!" Andreas explained. "The Hungarians told Gorbi they weren't going to maintain their part of the border anymore, and he came back and said 'We don't have the money either, do what you want!, so they stopped guarding the border and people just up and left through Austria."

"They're probably in Munich right now, laughing at the rest of us for not leaving when we had the chance," Lara sighed. 

"That's why we'll just have to make a big enough scene for Gorbachev to notice us tonight. Maybe he'll make Honecker follow the Hungarians' example?" Tobias wondered. 

"If we can even get that close to him. If the Volkspolizei don't get us maybe the KGB will!" Andreas laughed.

Ana hoped not. 

Before the march departed Ana took the opportunity to photograph and interview many of the demonstrators. Most were happy to share their opinions with someone from the west, hoping they could show the outside world what East Germans really thought about their government. Most, like Alex, would consider themselves as social outcasts but thoroughly believed in what they were marching for. Ana was happy to help them spread their message which she also believed in.

As the sun went down, the mass of over three thousand demonstrators assembled beneath the Fernsehturm, hoisting their signs and unfurling their banners. Despite the impressive numbers, it was to be a peaceful affair, but one to get a lot of notice, both good and bad. The plan was to march to the Palace of the Republic, the seat of the East German government, where Honecker was hosting a banquet for Gorbachev and his Soviet delegates. 

It was slow going but the sense of comradery and accomplishment kept everyone in high spirits. The chants for _Meinungsfreiheit_ and _Freie Wahlen_ matched the banners and echoed through the dark streets. Passersby either joined in or hastily walked away in the opposite direction. Their reactions gave Ana a twinge of concern.

As they approached the Spree's bank opposite the Palace of the Republic, the march came to a halt. The police had erected barriers preventing them from crossing the bridge. They could see the massive building and those attending the banquet congregating outside, but they were nowhere near close enough to engage with anyone. The cries of _Gorbi, Gorbi, Help Us_ went up nonetheless. The Volkspolizei (or VoPo as they were colloquially known) stood their ground, showing surprising restraint. Someone had advised them not to make a scene around the banquet. Ana was sure this would have turned out very differently otherwise.

The march eventually swerved back toward Prenzlauer Berg once it was clear they couldn't reach the palace. They would continue on to one of their meeting points and pass several other anniversary events on the way.

As the night drew on Ana couldn't help but feel an underlying sense of tension in the air. For a demonstration of this size, they had been left unmolested for a suspiciously long length of time. 

It was then that she first heard the distant sirens. Many of the marchers slowed to a stop but some of the young men started whistling in protest. The yellow lights of the police vehicles bounced off the building facades above before several rounded the intersection in front of them. 

Dozens of VoPo jumped from their trucks and formed a line in front of the march. Riot vehicles with hydraulic rams threatened from just beyond the line.

"Scheiße," Tobias hissed, "this won't be good."

Some of the more bold demonstrators continued marching ahead, into the VoPo line. They were quickly pushed back and it took less than a moment for the shouting to begin. The trucks were brought forward to begin pushing the crowd back up the street. People began pounding on the rams in protest and batons were set loose.

"We need to leave," Tobias said, grabbing her hand.

There were too many pushing among them; some attempting to move forward to confront the police while others turned to run. At the front line Ana heard people begin to scream, and her heart felt like it would beat out of her chest. 

"The bastards are going after the women!" Andreas shouted.

It was a classic trick of the Volkspolizei to target women to get the men in a crowd enraged enough to confront them in violence. Ana was horrified and broke into a run as soon as the crowd thinned enough. They scattered in every direction, trying to put as much space between them and the police as possible. Ana was only aware of Tobi's hand in hers. She couldn't keep track of who was going where.

As they ran through the panicked crowd she collided head-on with another fleeing demonstrator. She was thrown down with the force of the collision, palm and wrist breaking her fall on the pavement with a sharp pain that shot up her arm. Tobias, pushed the other person's body off her and heaved her back up.

"Are you okay?!" he asked as he continued pulling her along by her uninjured hand, dodging the dozens of other people running every which way. 

She could only nod at his back as they ran as fast as their legs could take them in the direction of a break in the crowd and the metro station beyond.

She put her injured hand up to adjust the strap on her camera bag. It was missing.

"My camera!" she shouted, pulling on his hand, looking back.

"Leave it, Ana!" he ordered as he tugged her along with ever more force. 

She twisted her hand out of his and pushed back in the direction they came, shoulder forcibly grazing several passers-by. It was irrational and it was stupid but she needed that camera, and the notes within the bag that held it, and she refused to let these hateful bigots take it from her.

The VoPo were still several metres ahead, violently apprehending any demonstrators they came in contact with. She scanned the ground for her bag in a panic as people sprinted passed, mercifully spotting it in the middle of a clearing in the street. She ran toward it, grabbed it, put it over her shoulder and turned to take off back in the direction she came and away from the police.

Several feet ahead she felt a sharp tearing pain claw at the back of her head and her neck jerked at an agonizing angle. A man behind her had her hair harshly fisted in his hand, wrenching her backward. She grabbed at his hand, desperate for him to slacken his hold, but he gripped tighter at her efforts making her cry out in pain.

Her legs were kicked out from under her sending her falling to the ground once again, but this time with malicious intent. Her injured wrist took the brunt of the fall, and she gave an agonised scream. She scrabbled at the pavement, instinctively making to get up and continue running. The man's knee was suddenly in the middle of her back, cutting off her efforts and crushing the air out of her lungs. She gasped desperately when he grabbed her shoulder to restrain her.

Feeling the skin of her attacker's arm near her neck and mouth, Ana twisted and laid her teeth into his wrist in a frantic attempt to defend herself from someone nearly twice her size. He grunted in pain, but immediately returned the favour by slamming her head against the pavement. She felt her cheek tear open and she saw stars from the impact, temporarily numbed of her senses. 

Distantly she heard Tobi calling her name. She was frightened and confused and still gasping for breath as she felt the man's weight shift as there was a scuffle just behind her, booted feet landing painfully on her legs. There was a flurry of curses and landing punches and as Ana shifted to her side she could see over a dozen Volkspolizei swarming around the remaining demonstrators. They had been surrounded. Men and women alike were apprehended, cruelly attacked if they resisted, and pulled into awaiting trucks. 

Her own attacker was dressed in street clothes, planted in the crowd to avoid detection. He struggled to throw Tobi off of him when two uniformed VoPo ran up and clubbed Tobi on the back forcing him to release the man in the jean jacket. 

She screamed his name as the two officers dragged him back and away. He called after her, kicking and thrashing against his apprehenders until he got the hilt of the baton to the back of his head. 

Before Ana could even process what she had just witnessed she was violently pulled to her feet by man in the jacket, and dragged toward one of the loitering trucks. She desperately tried to gain purchase on the ground, intent to give a last ditch effort of resistance, as futile as it would be, but she was too disoriented with pain and anxiety to make any impact. 

Another officer pulled her into the back of the truck and threw her against a bench alongside nearly a dozen other arrested demonstrators, most sporting some type of injury, some dripping with blood, and all with the dead-eyed expression of the oppressed. 

The back of the truck closed with a rolling clatter and the engine revved into action. 

Cradling her injured wrist in her lap, Ana swallowed the urge to ask the others where they were going. She already knew. They would all be spending the evening in East German prison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ana should have just left that f-ing camera!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Wessi: slang for someone from West Germany / West Berlin  
> Meinungsfreiheit: Freedom of press  
> Freie Wahlen: Free elections
> 
> **"Long live the German Democratic Republic our Socialist Homeland !" (that was the actual banner, I didn't make this up)
> 
> The title refers to a famous piece of graffiti art on the Berlin Wall depicting the fraternal kiss between Honecker and Brezhnev at the 30th Anniversary of the GDR.
> 
> ["Ana's" Photo](http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_image.cfm?image_id=3031)
> 
>  
> 
>  


	3. 'that totalitarian darkness'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ana finds out more about her mother's past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2 [aesthetic board for this series](http://nostalgicexpatriate.tumblr.com/post/152523567980/yet-another-aesthetic-board-for-my-tmfu-future-fic)

Ana lay on the metal cot bench in her cell but she couldn't sleep. Even hours after arriving her heart was still racing, her breathing was erratic and her wrist throbbed with incessant pain. 

When the hundreds of demonstrators were brought in for processing she had been separated from the others early on when the officers had determined she was a foreign national. She couldn't predict whether that would help or hurt her in this situation. On the one hand she had the power of a British passport and all the rights that came with it. They couldn't charge her without the embassy getting involved in some way. On the other, she'd be an ideal scapegoat for the government's recent issues with demonstrations; definitive 'proof' that citizens that the state's enemies were encouraging social delinquency among the people. It would be an optimal way to undermine the movement. 

Upon arrival her personal items had been taken from her. She was questioned on her identity, as would be expected, on her motivations for coming to East Germany. She told the truth, only omitting certain small details. _Stick to the truth as closely as you can_ her uncle had once told her, when she had asked how he was so good at lying. She never imagined that advice would come in handy in a place like this.

What Ana hadn't factored in was the officers' increasing interest in any information pertaining to her mother. With each new round of questions they wanted to know more, starting with the mundane; _What is her name? When was she born? When did she leave? What is her profession?_ and hours later moving on to perplexing specifics; _Where was she in X year? What was the name of her supervisors? What skills does she have?_ If Ana didn't know the answer they would verbally accost her, demand that she stop withholding information. _I don't know_ was never a suitable answer. 

When she was left on her own in the cell once again her head felt like it would split open from the stress of being shouted at from within centimetres of her face, the confusion of her predicament and the uncertainty of her future.

She had been too proud to let herself break in front of them, but now that she was left in the silence of the cell with only her own thoughts and her growing dread, she couldn't hold back any longer. The tears stung when they met the wound on her face. 

Suddenly she heard a rattling of keys and the door to the cell swung open. She dashed the tears off her face before they could see.

"Get up," a new Volkspolizei officer barked at her.

She stood and followed him out of the cell and he escorted her down the echoing hallway. "Where am I going?" she dared to ask.

He didn't answer.

The building was quiet, a stark contrast from the jumbled madness of the crowds that had been brought in hours before. Most of the prisoners had been released or moved, Ana noted. This didn't bod well for her...

She was taken to the ground floor and out into the prison's courtyard where a lone lorry with a name of a bakery painted on the side waited. Ana hesitated in confusion at the sight but was pushed forward by her escort. The side of the truck slides opened and another man in street clothes made to pull her inside. 

"What-?!" but before Ana can make too much protest she was hauled into the lorry and locked in a caged-off section in the back of the vehicle. The door rolled shut and the vehicle begins to move, Ana shifting about on her bench. The man sitting in the back ignored her, and despite craning her neck, she couldn't see out the one small window blocked by a curtain.

Where could they be taking her? she wondered. She hoped against hope that she is on her way to the embassy, or to be dropped off at a border crossing and told to leave and never come back. Her instincts, however, told her the destination is much more sinister. Her stomach dropped and she felt the irrational need to call for her mother.

The lorry eventually came to a halt and the man in the back jumped out. A few moments later another man, this time in a grey uniform, entered the lorry and unlocked her cell, telling her to follow him. When she existed, she was confused to find they were parked outside what looked like an office building, several stories tall and unassumingly ugly. 

She was lead inside, walking through a tall marble atrium and up a winding staircase. It was certainly not a prison but she could feel the sense of authority and repression nonetheless. Nearly everyone they passed was donned in a grey militaristic uniform. No one made eye contact with her. 

Several floors up she was escorted down a putrid yellow corridor and into a small bare room. She was told to wait and the door closed behind her. Ana hesitantly sat in the uncomfortable metal chair. There were only two austere chairs and a desk in the room and a humming fluorescent light above. The stale, claustrophobic air made it difficult for her to breathe. 

With each minute passing Ana's anxiety grew and she was sorely tempted to try the handle on the door and make a foolhardy run for it. At least she would feel like she had control for an instant. 

Before she could make a decision the door behind her opened and another grey uniformed officer walked in. He set two files on the desk, one thick the other thin, and, to her horror, her camera bag. He sat on the other side of the desk and looked at her with harsh dark eyes.

"You speak German?" he asked.

"I do," she answered, and then, because she couldn't not ask, she continued, "why am I here?"

"You've become of interest to the Ministry of State Security. I am Lieutenant Werner, and I am here to ask you a few questions."

Ana felt a cold chill run up her spine. She had been taken to Stasi headquarters. What could they possibly want with her?

"Why have you come to East Germany, Miss Teller?" he asked, opening the thinner file.

"I came to see the anniversary celebrations," she answered semi-honestly, "as a visitor and a tourist."

"The contents of your personal items suggest otherwise."

"How so?" she asked, nearly grinding her teeth with irritation. He opened the bag and removed her camera. "Is it illegal to take photographs?," she challenged, when he reached back in he removed her moleskin notepad. 

"That is entirely dependent on their subject," he replied coldly, "and when they are accompanied by transcripts of interviews with various dissidents, and recovered at the scene of a riot, one would have a hard time believing you are the innocent tourist you are claiming to be."

Ana couldn't disagree that this all looked terribly damning, but she wouldn't give in and admit to anything. She wasn't a criminal, and neither were any of the other people who were arrested the night before. "I took pictures of things I found interesting and wrote down interesting things I heard. I wasn't aware any of this was illegal-"

"Don't play dumb, Miss Teller," he shot back immediately, silencing her. "Anyone with an ounce of sense would be able to see your ulterior motives." 

"And what are those?" she asked shakily. Could she really be arrested and charged for acting like a journalist?

"Espionage," Werner hissed, as though the answer were so obvious.

Ana's mouth nearly dropped open. "That's-" she stammered, her mind struggling to do enough acrobatics to make sense of his accusation, "You think I'm a _spy_?"

"A spy under instruction to come to East Berlin to undermine the State and encourage delinquency among the people," he said almost casually. "The evidence is all here, and you did a very poor job covering it up."

"I'm not spy!" she shouted in outrage. It was all absolute insanity.

"You are a spy," he barked back, then, adding "just like your mother."

Ana's anger warped into confusion, a furrow forming between her brows. How did she play into this? "What? No, my mother works for the Foreign Office, but she's an analyst not-"

Werner tossed the thicker file onto her side of the table. "Open it," he invited with a casual wave of his hand.

Ana hesitated but opened the manila folder in front of her, revealing a photo of her mother, much younger with dark fringe above her eyes as was the style back then, looking somewhere off frame, almost as though she didn't know the picture was being taken. A surveillance photograph. Ana's eyes scanned the words on the page, scarcely able to process their combined meaning in her tangled mind; 'defector', 'sleeper agent', 'foreign asset', 'espionage', 'Secret Intelligence Service'...

"If she isn't a spy now, she certainly was one for a quite a long time. Perhaps before she even escaped over the Wall with her friend from the CIA," Werner said, giving a harsh grin.

Ana turned the page and stared into the black and white eyes of her uncle, 25 years younger and shockingly handsome. She looked up at Werner in disbelief. This couldn't be true. Ana's mother had always told her she had emigrated from East Germany through West Berlin in early 1961, six months before the Wall was built. If this file was correct, she actually left nearly two years later...over the Wall. This was some kind of sick manipulation...

"According to that file, your mother and her friend tore apart an apartment block, destroyed two cars and left a Soviet agent stranded in a minefield during her escape," he said meeting Ana's eyes menacingly. "It makes your little foray into public disorder look like child's play."

Ana's hand began to shake on the file, she couldn't bear to turn another page.

"And that," Werner continued, "Isn't even the most interesting part. It seems Gabriela Teller or, as she was initially known to us, Gabriela Schmidt: daughter of a Nazi scientist, niece of a fugitive war criminal and defector and traitor to the German Democratic Republic, decided to sell her services to MI6, and was involved in some laughable experiment to combine assets from various agencies to counteract common enemies for the 'greater good'," Werner huffed. He pulled a paper from the dossier towards him. "United Network Command for Law Enforcement," he read. "Unsurprisingly, it was a complete failure. I'm sure in no small part to the type of 'agents' they chose to employ," he laughed. 

None of this was familiar to Ana. Her mother had never mentioned anything to this effect in her presence. It was all complete madness. 

"It also seems you're not without your own secrets," Werner considered as he picked up a folder from her bag and emptied its contents on the table with a clatter. Her necklace, wallet and passport spilled across the surface. "Not only did you bring your overly large camera, but you also have a tracking device with shockingly out-of-date technology." He tossed her mother's pearl ring and chain onto the open dossier.

Ana sat completely stunned. She couldn't tell where reality ended and this nightmare began.

"So tell me again, Miss Teller, how your mother was not a spy," Werner asked, all amusement gone from his voice, "and how her daughter, traveling to East Germany to engage in social mayhem with a camera and a tracking device, is also not a spy?"

"I want to speak to a consular from the British Embassy," Ana demanded.

"I'm afraid that's not possible at the moment."

Ana felt panic rising in her belly. "I'm a British Citizen, you can't deny me the right-"

"You broke the laws of the Republic, if you think you can just-!" Werner began when there was an abrupt knock at the door.

He looked up at the door with irritation. There was another more insistent knock before he cursed under his breath and rose to answer. Ana could hear hushed whispers behind her. Werner sounded increasingly indignant.

"Fine!" He hissed, and footsteps sounded down the hall. 

"Excuse me for a moment," Werner grumbled over his shoulder to Ana before shutting the door behind him. She heard the lock slide into place.

Ana let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Suddenly all her remaining strength melted away and she held her shaking injured hand to her chest, struggling to gain control of her breathing. There wasn't enough air in this stifling, hopeless room.

What the fuck had she gotten herself into?

Her eyes landed on the dossier and ring -tracking device- in front of her. How could any of this be true? How could she not have known? All these years her mother and every adult she had considered family had lied to her. And now, here she was, finding out about it in Stasi headquarters behind the fucking Wall.

There was no way she was going to convince these people that she wasn't in anyway connected to what her closest relations had engaged in. This was going to turn into a diplomatic fiasco of biblical proportions with her at the centre of it. God knew how long it will take for her to get out of here...and at what cost?

She raked her hands through her hair, a sob threatening to tear from her throat.

Ana didn't have a chance to breakdown when the door opened and closed behind her. She kept her eyes on the floor, defeated. She didn't want Werner to see the tears in them. 

"Ana Teller," a deep voice said.

She looked up. In Werner's seat was a tall, middle-aged man with blonde hair, greying at the sides. In place of the Stasi uniform she has seen on every person since she arrived he was wearing ordinary street clothes with a dark grey jacket. He stared at her with intense blue eyes.

"Yes?" she answered stupidly, confused. Maybe someone had been sent over from the embassy to advise her, to help her out of this situation...

"My name is Illya Kuryakin" he said in thickly accented English, "with the _Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti._ "

 _Shit_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cliffhanger. sorry!
> 
> thank you once again for reading/liking/commenting on my garbage


	4. No one crosses in the city of night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ana makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is another monster that will hopefully make up for the short chapter from last week.

Just when she thought things couldn't get any worse, the Stasi decided to call in help from the mother-ship. Ana sat frozen in her chair, wondering what she had ever done to deserve this.

She swallowed her fear and in turn felt herself bristle at the prospect of yet another interrogation. She just went through all this with Werner. She was getting real sick of being intimidated by strange foreign men.

"How can I help you Mr. Kuryakin?" she all but sneered in Russian. _Stop being a cheeky little shit Ana!_ she chastised herself.

His eyes widened for a moment and he looked down at the table, the corner of his mouth twitching. That wasn't the reaction she was expecting to get from this giant. He opened her thin file on the desk.

"Seems you've been accused of being spy," he began in English.

"I'm not a spy," she reiterated. It's something she has said a disconcerting number of times that day.

"Lieutenant Werner thinks otherwise."

“Lieutenant Werner thinks anyone who isn't a Stasi Officer or a Stasi informant is an enemy spy," Ana spat.

"Then, tell me, what is it you're doing in East Berlin, Miss Teller?"

"I came here to see the city. Last I heard, westerners are allowed to enter East Germany as temporary tourists."

"Convenient timing...for demonstrations," he prodded.

"They're happening all over this region," Ana pointed out, "haven't you heard?"

He ignored her and made a note on her file.

"I'm told you speak German very well, and apparently," he looked up from the file, "some Russian as well,"

Ana shrugged. So?

He looked back down at the file. "But with not so good accent."

Ana stopped herself from nearly scoffing. He was one to talk.

"Do you have family here? Is that how you learned German?"

"No, my family is in England, but my mother is German."

"Your mother."

"Well, I'm sure you already know about her," Ana said. Seemed everyone knows the truth about her mother except her. He looked up from her file with what can only be described as impetuous shock. Confused, Ana continued, "The Stasi have an entire file on her."

He looked at the larger file on the desk and cleared his throat. "Yes, of course."

His eyes remained on the ring for a moment, an odd expression on his face. Is this pensiveness standard KGB practice? Ana wondered. What is going on?

"And your father?" he asked suddenly.

She supposed her best bet is to be completely honest at this point. She isn't, after all, an actual spy. "I don't have a father," she said, squaring her shoulders, daring him to make assumptions.

He left it. "Who did you come here with?"

"I traveled from England with a West German. We came to visit the East for the anniversary celebrations. We got separated in the crowd during the demonstration."

"His name?"

Ana hesitated, hoping Tobias had been released and made it back to West Berlin.

"His name?" the man said more sternly.

"Tobias Müller," Ana relented.

"Friend? Classmate?" he asked.

Honesty, Ana chided herself, humiliated that she needed to tell this stranger anything about her personal life. "Both, and boyfriend."

The man shifted in his seat and made a note on her file. "Not very good boyfriend if he leaves you in crowd during riot," he commented disapprovingly.

"It wasn't a riot and he didn't leave me. We got separated after I ran back into the crowd to get my camera."

He looked at said object on the table. He tapped it. "Why would you go back for this? It is only an old camera."

"It means a great deal to me," it was perhaps the most honest answer she had given all day. Saying it alone almost made her eyes sting with tears again as she thought of her mother and all her secrets.

He nodded, looking at her for a moment longer than necessary before glancing back at the camera. "What photos are in here?"

"Photos of people," Ana said. "People in the demonstration. Musicians. Artists. Young East Germans."

"You are journalist?"

Ana knew that word had a completely different connotation over here. "A student. I'm just interested in photography," she gestured to the camera. It was all true.

What she expected to segue into an interrogation about her interest in the profession and how her trip to East Berlin may fit into it ended with him flipping her file shut. "When were you expecting to leave?"

"Here? Or East Germany?" she asked, even more confused. She wanted to leave immediately. She wanted to run out the door, climb the damn Wall, swim the Spree and get the hell out of this country forever.

"East Germany," he clarified.

"We were supposed to leave today."

"You would be expected back at your university, yes? You must have exams soon."

Ana sat dumbfounded. Was this KGB officer really showing concern for interference in her education? Had she passed out and hit her head while speaking to Werner? "Yes, but..."

The man looked at his watch. "That should be enough time," he muttered in Russian, she assumed, to himself. He collected both files and their contents and put her personal items back in the bag. He stood up.

"Come," he said, heading for the door. "I trust you will cooperate? I do not need to have you restrained?" he asked, looking back.

Ana looked up at him, much taller than what she expected when he had been sitting in the chair. "Where are we going?" she demanded.

"We'll discuss that on the way," he responded enigmatically.

Ana felt the panic swirl in her gut again. She knew this was too good to be true. She was going to spend the night hanging from a pipe having her toenails removed...

He led her down the hallway and to the staircase. On the landing they met Werner and another officer. They passed and she felt a hand on her back, nudging her down the stairs. Werner looked aghast when he saw the Russian leading his freshly caught 'spy' away.

"Where is she going?!" he barked, clearly not used to seeing people operating against his wishes.

"I have been ordered to take her to Karlshorst if needed," the Russian answered calmly, his German just as thickly accented as his English. 

"For what purposes?" Werner challenged, aghast.

The Russian turned to him, annoyed. "She will be detained for further questioning-"

"I have not given my approval for you to come in-"

"You may contact my superior," the Russian interrupted sternly, climbing the final step and towering over the German, "if you insist on berating him on so small a matter."

Werner's jaw clenched angrily as his eyes darted from Ana back to the KGB officer.

"Good, I'm glad we came to understanding," the Russian said, "I will be on my way." 

He nudged Ana down the stairs again, but she hesitated. She only had two options; stay with Werner and the Stasi, where she would undoubtedly be held in captivity for weeks, if not months, while she was used as a political bargaining chip with the West, or take her chances with the strange Russian.

She looked at him, imposing in both height and personality, but for whatever odd reason her instincts told her to trust this man. With a hesitant step she followed him down the stairs.

 _Then again I could be jumping straight from the frying pan into the fire_ , she thought to herself. She'd have to wait and see. Her choice was already made.  
___

Illya mentally willed his hands to stop shaking once again. They had been at it since he had received Solo's signal late the night before, after returning to his hotel following Gorbachev's banquet. Something they had only agreed to use in absolute emergencies, Illya could barely control the pen in his hand when he had begun to decode the message, dreading the information it might reveal. Someone had been hurt, gotten sick. Worse, died. It seemed impossible now that he was somewhat relieved to find that his daughter was also in East Berlin, participating in a protest. His relief quickly dissolved into apprehension when he heard of the arrests. 

Hours of searching had brought him face-to-face with the girl...young woman that he had thought about every day for the past twenty-one years. This was not how he had envisioned their reunion; in some forsaken interrogation room, still hiding behind the mask of anonymity, watching her regard him with fear and distrust. He wanted to simultaneously gather her into his arms to comfort her, tend her wounds, and shake her violently, demand that she answer for her recklessness. Under the circumstances, he was unable to do either and forced himself to remain pragmatic, to keep himself from getting overwhelmed by her mere physical presence. She was in immediate danger and he needed to deliver her to safety before it was too late.

It was only a matter of days before all of East Germany would implode. The protests thus far had been peaceful and with the exception of last night's arrests the government had restrained itself from beating its people into submission as they had in '53 or as the Chinese had in Tiananmen Square only a few months prior. Illya didn't know whether they would hold back for much longer if the demonstrations continued. The country was like an injured animal in the throes of death; unpredictable and still capable of lashing violence. He wanted Ana as far away from it as possible. 

Getting her out of headquarters at Lichtenberg was only the first hurdle. They may have escaped the jaws of the beast for now, but they could still be hunted. They needed to get moving before Werner delved into the authenticity of Illya's story, which he most certainly would. 

Illya led the girl out into the parking lot, holding her by the upper arm to feign restraint. He opened the passenger side door to his car and urged her to get in. She looked unsure, eyeing him warily. 

"Get in," he said gently but insistently, looking back toward the entrance to the building, making sure no one was coming out to pursue them. He shut the door after her and got in on the driver's side. He was quick to turn on the engine and drive out of the parking lot. He watched the building disappear from his rear-view mirror when he turned the corner, half expecting sirens to call after them.

"What's in Karlshorst?" the girl asked nervously. 

"Soviet military headquarters," he answered, and noticed her tense up immediately, "but that is not where we are going."

"Where then?" She turned to him, still looking terrified. 

"I am to get you back to the West," he said, hoping to ease her a bit.

That only seemed to confuse her. Her brow scrunched up and she looked at him skeptically.

"Why?"

"I was told to look after you, in case you get yourself into trouble while in Berlin," he said, giving her a reprimanding look, "which of course you did."

"Who told you to look after me?" Ana asked, shocked. 

"Your uncle."

She was silent for a moment, processing the unexpected information. 

"You mean the CIA agent," Ana murmured.

"That one," he confirmed.

"Why would he contact you?" she wondered. "What are you? A double agent or something?

"нет," he spat, "we are...friends."

"Friends? An American CIA agent and a Russian from the KGB?" she asked incredulously, "That doesn't sound very _friendly_."

"Is long story."

"How am I supposed to believe you actually know him? That you just didn't research my background like the Stasi did to get me to trust you?"

Illya pondered on how he could prove he actually knew Cowboy.

"He is overly-confident womanizer with taste for gaudy fashion and expensive scotch," Illya described, glancing at Ana's still skeptical look. He realised that anyone who had known Solo for more than five minutes would know these facts about him. He tried the specifics. "He makes very good truffle risotto. Better than restaurants. He can talk on Etruscan art for an hour. Several if you do not shut him up. He likes James Bond films even though he should know they are complete nonsense. He thinks he is Bond only American and-"

"Much better looking," Ana finished for him, seemingly satisfied with his answer and noticeably relieved. "So he just rang you up and asked you to stalk me?"

"There was no ringing or stalking," Illya said indignantly. "He sent coded message, told me of you, your plan to be delinquent," she scowled at him. "I hear of the arrests. Go to prison, ask for your name. They tell me where you were taken," he shrugged as though he hadn't been absolutely consumed by insurmountable worry for the past twelve hours. 

"And then you just waltzed into Stasi headquarters and retrieved me?" she asked, somewhat impressed.

"I walked. Not waltz," he corrected.

"It's a saying..." she huffed. "Are you taking me to the embassy then?" she asked, a tinge of hope in her voice.

He had been so anxious to get Ana out of that snake pit that he hadn't thought much about what exactly he would do once he had her in his custody. He was currently just driving to put as much distance between them and headquarters as quickly as possible. It's true his first instinct was to take her to the British Embassy in East Berlin, but with Werner's skepticism of Illya's authority he wouldn't be surprised if the man had already called in a unit to greet them outside the building just in case they showed up. Even if Ana did manage to get into the embassy she could still be trapped in limbo for months, waiting for the red tape to be cleared before she could cross back over to the West.

He wasn't going to put his daughter's safety in the hands of a bunch of self-serving bureaucrats. Only he could get her out of this mess unscathed. 

"No, that is not option. They will be expecting us there. We will need to cross over to the West..."

But where? Illya thought as he drove. As a foreigner, Ana could only pass through the Berlin Wall at Checkpoint Charlie, and the guards at that crossing have probably had Ana's name for hours, ever since she was taken into custody by the Volkspolizei . He could try for the Inner German border but it would take hours to get there and by that time their absence would have been noticed, and the western crossing stations would be the first to be alerted. They would have to go around the border...

"We'll go south, cross over to Austria through Hungary," he concluded, "They are no longer maintaining their border and the authorities will not be expecting us at the crossings into Czechoslovakia on the way."

"That will take days!" Ana protested.

"Then you are welcome to stay here," Illya said, even though that wasn't true. He'd never let her choose to stay with the Stasi. "Be detained until you agree to let them put you in front of television camera, confess that your government sent you here to undermine the East German state."

"I would never say something like that! I don't care what they'd do," she claimed with indignant ignorance. 

"Of course you would," Illya asserted. "Grown men, soldiers, spies trained for this have done as much. Maybe you will be lucky, they will not physically harm you, but you will admit to anything if they deprive you of sleep long enough..."

He could see on her face that she was engaged in a mental battle with herself. She didn't wholly trust him that much was clear. He could not blame her for that. He was a strange man from a place and an agency she had been taught to fear. But he was also her only viable option for escape. She didn't know what to do.

He wished he could ease her mind. Tell her the truth that she could trust him above anyone else, that he would gladly sacrifice himself for her safety, but he held his tongue. A confession now could prove to be trouble the longer they were behind the curtain. Besides, it wasn't his decision, he thought regretfully, and she had already made hers. 

"Take me to Mitte," she said suddenly, desperate.

"What? Why do you need to go there?" he sputtered.

"I need to see my friend or his family before I'll leave with you," Ana demanded. 

"Absolutely not! It is in wrong direction and there is no time-"

"Take me to Mitte or I'll throw myself out of this car and run there myself!"

He scoffed. She wouldn't dare. 

When he glanced over she narrowed her eyes at him. Then, to his horror, she unbuckled her safety belt and opened the passenger side door. As she leaned out he made a panicked grab at her arm and hauled her back inside, the car veering to the side with a screech of rubber on road.

"What are you doing?!" he shouted, swerving to get the car back in its lane. 

"Take me to Mitte!" she shouted back.

"ладно!" he barked at her. She sat back against her seat and he swore he saw a smirk on her lips. 

"Избалованный ребёнок..." he grumbled under his breathe as he made a U turn. The girl had apparently never grown out of her rebellious streak. Not that he was much surprised knowing who her mother was.

He would allow her this one thing, but after they needed to leave Berlin. Quickly.  
___

When they approached the neighbourhood she recognised she directed the Russian where to go. She had him go up the street behind the home of Tobi's family, so they wouldn't be seen coming through the front entrance.

"Pull over here," she said, before jumping out of the car. 

She snuck into their back garden and tentatively knocked on their back door. She hoped someone was home, and Tobi especially, but she had no way of knowing whether he had been released from prison. She saw the curtain in the window move and the knob turned. Claudia, Tobi's cousin, peaked through the crack.

"Ana!" she said, concern washing over the girl's face when she saw the state of her; bruised, harried and exhausted. "Are you okay? Come in. Were you in prison too?!"

Ana entered the back hallway, thankful to see someone who wasn't an agent in a communist spy agency. 

"I'm okay," Ana lied. "And yes, I was, for a time, have they released Tobi or Alex?"

"My brother is still being held because of his involvement. My father went to the prison to see him," she said sadly. "Tobi just got back, he was looking for you!"

Ana heard steps at the top of the stairs and saw Tobi. She gave a sigh of relief and he ran down to hug her. His face was mottled with bruises and he sported a massive black eye. It made her blood boil once again. 

"When did they release you?!" he asked, inspecting the wound on her face. "They dumped me off at Friedrichstrasse less than an hour ago but I slipped out of the queue and came back here to see if you were still in the East."

"I'm not exactly released," she said. "I was taken to see the Stasi when they became suspicious about my camera and the interview notes I had on me," she deliberately left out the bit about her mother. There wasn't enough time to explain something she didn't even fully understand herself. 

Tobias and Claudia both looked at her in horrified shock.

"How were you able to leave?" Tobias asked.

"There was this man who showed up and he was able to get me out, he's going to get me back to the West when-"

The back door opened and said man strode in as though it were his own home. Claudia took a hesitant step back when she saw the height of him.

"What are you doing?" she scorned. She had expected him to wait in the car.

"Is this him?" the man asked darkly, pointing at Tobias. "The one who convinced you to go to riot?"

Ana sighed. "It _wasn't_ a riot-"

In flash of movement the Russian grabbed Tobi roughly by the collar of his jacket. Claudia shrieked and Ana gasped at the sudden explosion of tension. Tobias was tall but the Russian still had two to three inches on him and yanked harshly at his collar to bring the young man to eye-level.

Illya growled in his face. "None of this would have happened if you had not talk her into-!"

"Stop it!" Ana cried, "Let him go!"

The Russian glanced at her and back at Tobi, who stared angrily into his eyes but didn't rise to his threat. His passiveness seemed to annoy the man, who let go of his collar and shoved Tobi away with a deadly glare. 

Ana walked over to Tobi and grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the kitchen. "I need to speak with him," she said to the Russian in passing. When the man made to follow Ana snapped. "Alone!"

The man ground his teeth, but relented. "One minute!"

"Five!" she yelled before slipping into the kitchen. She saw Claudia make a quick exit upstairs, afraid to be left alone with the giant in the hallway. 

"Ana, what the hell is going on?" Tobias asked as soon as the door closed behind them. "Who is that man?"

Ana glanced back to make sure the door was closed. "His name is Illya...Kuraken, something. He was the one who showed up at Stasi headquarters when I was in the middle of an interrogation. He had the power to let me leave," she braced herself to say the most concerning part. "He says he's with the KGB."

Tobias' eyes widened and his mouth nearly dropped open. "Why would you leave with him?!" he hissed.

"He got me out of that _place_ ," she would've followed the devil himself to get out there, truth be told, "but he says he was summoned by my uncle once he found out I was coming over here. To look after me in case I got in trouble."

"What?!" Tobias asked in shock. He only knew Napoleon as her eccentric American 'uncle' who once tried to get him drunk on old fashions while making awkward passes at his classmates. "Ana, are you sure? These people are experts at manipulation. Their entire lives revolve around it."

 _You have no idea,_ Ana thought, reflecting on her mother.

"Apparently my uncle is a little higher up in the American government than I was previously aware of," she left out which part of the government he was in specifically, "and has some friends in high and...unusual places..."

"You cannot leave with him Ana!" he insisted. "This isn't some low-level Stasi goon looking for a power trip and some special privileges. He probably came here with Gorbi!"

"What else am I supposed to do?!" she asked, his reaction causing panic to rise in her voice. "I can't pass through any check-point or border-crossing on my own...not when there is probably a literal warrant out for me...but he said if we go via Hungary..."

"Are you certain he's not trying to recruit you?" Tobias asked.

"Oh, come on!" Ana said rolling her eyes.

"I'm serious. It wouldn't be the first time the Soviets have approached students from Oxbridge, and if he releases you to the West he might expect you to repay the favour with information."

"Tobi, I've been here less than 48 hours and already I've been arrested for being a spy...and I'm not even a spy! You think the KGB is going see me as double agent material?!" If the situation weren't so dire she would have laughed.

"I'll come with you then!" he insisted.

"No," she hissed, lowering her voice to a whisper. "No, I need you to go back West and contact my mother and tell her what happened. Her former boss is a family friend and has connections to MI6," she doesn't mention that her mother probably has the same connections. "He's retired, but I'm sure he still knows people who will help me if things...go wrong." Poor Tobi, he'll probably end up with another black eye from her mother but at least Ana will know the proper authorities back home will be aware of her situation. 

"I don't like this at all," he whispered, cupping his hands around her face.

"I don't either but I don't have much choice, do I?" she said sadly.

Tobias leaned his forehead against hers. Ana let her eyes close and for the first time in nearly a day she allowed herself to calm. Eyes still closed, she tilted her face up to his, feeling his bruised lips against hers- 

The door swung open and the pair jumped apart. The Russian gave an aggravated grumble at their impropriety. 

"Time to go," he said grabbing her upper arm and tugging her away from Tobi, shooting him another angry glare.

They returned to the hallway and Ana jerked out of his grasp to run upstairs to retrieve her bag. She bid Claudia farewell, who was hiding in her room from the Russian downstairs, and made her way to the door and her awaiting escort. Or is it captor? She still wasn't sure.

Tobi followed them out into the garden and she turned to give him a small wave goodbye and an urgent look that silently communicated her pleading request; 'don't forget'. He nodded, and she felt a wash of relief. 

Ana and the Russian made their way back to the car. He opened the door and waited for her, this strange man with the pensive demeanor to match his short temper. She felt a question twisting in her throat like a wire, sharp and insistent, but she swallowed it down. 

"Coming?"

Ana nodded. She hoped she made the right decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Road Trip!
> 
> I too am going to be traveling for about 2 weeks so there may not be an update for a minute dependent on how busy I will be, but I promise that this is not being abandoned if some time passes between this chapter and the next. 
> 
> Also, I realise my tenses are all over the place in my writing, so I apologise for that. Also, some words are spelled in American English and others in British English. My spell check changes depending on which computer I'm writing on (I'm an American living abroad so it can be confusing for me in my everyday life not just here). So please try to ignore my lazy editing and hopefully it doesn't take away from your reading experience!
> 
> ладно: (reluctant) okay
> 
> Избалованный ребёнок: spoiled child/brat
> 
> Please correct me in the comments if these are wrong.
> 
> Most of the 1200 or so people who were arrested at the anniversary protests were released soon after. Westerners were rarely arrested for more than a few days (unless they were legitimately criminals/spies) because the GDR was dependent on the western currency that tourists and visitors brought into the country. They didn't want to scare people away _too_ badly. There are some exceptions of course, most notably the American student Frederic Pryor who was held until he and a downed U2 pilot could be exchanged for the captured KGB agent Rudolf Abel.


	5. I hope the Russians love their children too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ana and Illya travel to Dresden

Ana flipped through the radio stations once again. They had driven out of the range of the West Berlin frequencies and into the 'Valley of the Clueless' where the people had limited access to information from the West. She couldn't find any stations that weren't censored 'news' and propaganda or state approved music which consisted mainly of soft jazz and folk songs. On her third scan the Russian stabbed at the radio with his finger and turned it off. 

She looked away and rolled her eyes. "How much longer to Dresden?" she asked.

"We are halfway there," he answered. 

She smirked out the window. "Woah, livin' on a prayer?" 

He took his eyes off the road to glance at her with a furrowed brow. "What?"

She looked at him with her own raised brow. "Bon Jovi...?" 

He turned his attention to the road and back to her, face still contorted in confusion.

"Never mind," she huffed. Apparently the Valley of the Clueless extended to the Soviet Union. 

Ana reached into her bag and took out her Walkman, donning the headphones and flicking her tape on. She looked down into her bag and saw her mother's file, tentatively taking it into her lap. She wanted to read every detail and tear it to pieces in turns. Ana couldn't deny that her curiosity was eating away at her. Was this part of what her mother wanted to tell her, or had she wanted to keep this a secret from her daughter forever? 

Ana decided to take control of the situation and began reading. She'd learn everything there was to know about her mother's previous life, or at least what the Stasi knew of it. Turning the first page she read about the young car mechanic turned sleeper agent, somehow recruited by MI6 behind the Wall. Two years, the Stasi estimated. Two years she had laid in wait for whatever her orders would end up being. Ana had a difficult time associating this cunning and enigmatic agent photographed in greyscale with her mother...but was it so hard to believe? She had kept her entire life shrouded in mystery from her closest family member, surely it wasn't too much of a stretch to see how that same person could be involved in the world of international intelligence. 

And the organisation she was involved with; it was like nothing Ana had heard about in school. The file didn't say much about her time in UNCLE, as it was known. Ana could only assume she was dispatched across the world during that time, far out of the reach of the East German secret police. Her file doesn't contain information on her whereabouts for several years before the Stasi make note of her reappearance in the vicinity of Berlin in 1967, shortly before Ana was born.

Motherhood seemed to have terminated Gaby's days in espionage as the file contains nothing beyond that year. Ended her career but certainly didn't rob her of her talent for deception. Ana's hand tightened on the folder, crinkling it slightly. She really was tempted to throw it out the window, watch it scatter across the motorway behind them and into the wind.

She heard the Russian say something through the sound in her earphones.

She removed the headset. "What did you say?"

"You are angry with your mother," he repeated.

"Of course I'm angry with her. I don't even know who this person really is," she said, motioning toward the folder in her lap. "She never told me anything growing up...made me believe she was someone else entirely." Her father had always been a mystery, now her mother was too, and by some strange extension, Ana wasn't even sure who _she_ was anymore, but she wasn't going to tell him that much.

"Maybe it was what she thought was best for you, as a child," he speculated. 

"Well, it certainly didn't help me in the long run. Look where I am now!"

He gave a short laugh. "This is not her fault. You did this yourself."

"But if I had known-"

"If you had known, this would have stopped you from going to Berlin?" he glanced over at her. 

"No...probably not-" she had to admit. 

"Or would knowing the truth only make you more curious, perhaps even more bold?" he mused, "You would say something to the wrong person in wrong place and then find yourself where you just were, but with no one to help you."

She opened her mouth to protest but closed it again. What would she have done, had her mother told her the truth about her career as a spy? Would Ana have been contented and moved on with her life as usual, or would knowing about her mother's unusual origins and profession only make her more bold in her own personal endeavours. Perhaps she would have thought of herself as invincible, as though she her pedigree would somehow make her immune to the consequences of her decisions. 

"Maybe that is what she was afraid of," he shrugged. 

Ana looked over at the man, slightly hunched over in the seat of the car that was much too small for his height. He was turning out to be a far cry from those she had met in the Volkspolizei and the Stasi. It was strange to meet someone like him, an intelligence agent from a much hated country and be presented with, well...a person...not some nameless antagonist in a lousy action film. 

"Do you have any children?" she asked, legitimately curious. 

"I have a daughter," he said quietly, after a moment.

"And did you tell her, about what you truly are?"

"I did what I needed to do, to protect her," he responded, eyes focused on the road ahead of him.

Ana wasn't sure if that confession was comforting, knowing there was at least one other person in the world who had experienced the hurt and betrayal of a parent's lie. She did feel sympathy for her, whoever that girl was, but she has an easier time understanding the Russian's decision than she did her own mother's. His daughter was probably safer not knowing. 

The rest of the drive to Dresden went quickly, despite the lack of radio, Ana easily lost in her own thoughts. The sun fell and she was quickly succumbing to her exhaustion when the Russian maneuvered into a parking spot on a side street in central Dresden. They sat for a moment, waiting to see if they were followed, inspecting every shadow in the street-lights. He got out of the car and retrieved a bag from the boot. 

He knocked on her window and motioned for her to follow.

They walked two blocks to a long street of pre-war buildings, their baroque facades still mottled from shrapnel fire during the war, forty plus years on. The ugly modern asphalt streets were an insult to the once beautiful architecture of the buildings, their cobblestones having been ripped up and sold to West Germany years ago in exchange for hard currency. No doubt they now lay beautifully, reflecting street light in some distant city. 

The Russian approached the entrance of one of the buildings that still looked vaguely habitable, checking their surroundings before entering, holding the door for her. 

"What is this place?" she asked once they were inside.

"It is safe house," he said quietly, so his voice didn't go echoing up the spiraling central staircase, "though I have not used in years."

It didn't look like anyone else has either, Ana thought as she gingerly stepped over debris littering the ground. 

They ascended the stairs to the second floor where her escort listened carefully at a door before picking its lock with quick efficiency. At the slightly ajarhe door he casually removed a pistol from the holster inside his jacket. Ana froze where she stood, her eyes locked on the unexpected firearm before her. The Russian glanced back at her, eyes going wide at her expression, looking ready to bolt. He held up an apologetic hand and nodded at the apartment before disappearing inside. A few moments later he returned to the entrance and flicked the lights on inside the main room.

Ana hesitantly entered the apartment which, like the hallway, had seen better days. Wallpaper hung in torn sheets all around her and a thick layer of dust covered every surface. The Russian held a finger to his lips before he proceeded to investigate the room, presumably for bugs, popping off the cover of every light switch, following the seams of the wallpaper and even standing on a rickety wooden chair that somehow held his weight to check the bowl of the ceiling light fixture. 

He spoke once he completed his sweep, confident that she was the only one listening to his words.

"We will stay here for the night and drive to border in the morning. I will go find us food," he said, putting the gun back in his holster. "There is bathroom down the hall. If we are lucky there will be running water."

Ana nodded, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as the floor creaked.

"Lock the door and do not open for anyone, yes?" he warned.

She nodded again as he made his way back into the hallway and locked the door behind him. Ana inspected the apartment herself, for the sake of curiosity rather than as a safety measure. The main room only contained some sad decrepit furniture, including a desk with a shade-less lamp and a small couch with torn fabric and springs that creaked in protest under her weight. Old newspapers littered the floor about her feet and blackout curtains covered every window. She wanted to part them to look outside onto the street but knew it would be too risky if anyone saw lights in what she assumed was typically a dark building.

In the corner was a small table upon which sat a small and long outdated record player. Cobwebs covered the tone arm and the needle had long since broken off but Ana smiled to see some sign that life used to fill this place. She wondered how many spies over the years had called this apartment home for a night or two, waiting for whatever their mission would hold the following day. She removed her camera from her bag and photographed the room. 

Ana made her way to the bathroom, which was in just as much disrepair. She turned the tap with her good hand, listening to the pipes in the wall groan before rusted water spurted forth, running clear after a moment. Delighted, Ana ran to get toiletries from her bag in the other room. 

While rifling through her bag she heard the front door jostle. Ana darted around the corner, waiting to see who would enter, wishing the Russian had left his gun. When the door opened she peeked around the corner and exhaled in relief when she saw the KGB agent carrying a brown bag. 

"Come," he said, without even looking in her direction, intrinsically knowing he was being watched, "eat."

He didn't need to ask twice. It had been over twenty-four hours since her last meal and while the adrenaline pumping through her body had kept hunger at bay, the mere prospect of food now made her ravenous. The man watched in polite horror as she tore into a plain loaf of bread, devouring it in a matter of seconds. 

"What?" she remarked around mouthful of bread, "I'm starving."

He smiled slightly, "I can see this."

They ate in silence, both too hungry to make conversation, and nothing was wasted. Ana's gut hurt but with the way this trip was going, she didn't know when she'd be able to eat again. She excused herself to finish washing up in the bathroom, scrubbing the grime from the street and the prison off her skin and out of her hair. She felt like a new person with a full belly, clean skin and a fresh set of clothing. The wound on her face appeared to be healing well as she inspected it in the bathroom's broken mirror. Her wrist however, still throbbed with pain if she exerted it too much. 

Returning to the main room she found the Russian hunched over the desk, his suitcase open at his side and papers scattered out before him. He was paying meticulous attention to one document before turning to her as she entered the room. 

"How is your wrist?" he asked.

She hadn't told him her hand had been injured but he must have noticed her favouring the appendage throughout the day. "Still a little painful, but I can move it a bit," she said.

"Sprained then," he replied. He leaned down to retrieve medical wrap from his suitcase, and pulled the other chair closer to him. "It will need to be bound."

Ana nodded and sat in the chair opposite, presenting him with the afflicted wrist. As he began to wind the bandage around her, Ana looked curiously at the documents strewn across the desk. There were two red passports and several documents that appeared to be visas, or at least very high quality forgeries. 

"You come prepared," she commented, impressed.

"Part of job. Can never be too prepared."

Without asking she pulled the nearest passport toward her. The man before her stared austerely from the page, his name and details displayed in neat Cyrillic. 

"Sergey Ivanov?" she asked, looking at the passport.

"An alias," he responded, still concentrating on the wrap.

"For when we cross the border?"

"Yes," he said, "it is best I do not use my real name."

She looked up at him as he tightened the bandage to keep her wrist straight. How much trouble could he get in just for helping her? Ana wondered. It was an unsettling thought and she was even hit with an unexpected pang of guilt. She hoped her poor decisions didn't ruin this man's life.

She pulled the other passport toward her. There was no photograph but written neatly on the opposite page was the name _Anastasia Sergeyevna Ivanova_.

"Anastasia?" she queried with a smirk.

"Your cover. Sergey's daughter," he replied.

"Anastasia," she hummed in approval, "like the lost princess?" It did give a somewhat romanticised twist to her own journey, Ana had to admit. 

"She was not lost," he chided as he tied off her wrap, "she was executed by Bolsheviks." 

Well, that ruined it, Ana thought.

"So I am to be Russian?" she smiled, "I thought my accent was horrible."

He released her wrist and she tentatively tested the pressure of the wrap.

"Not horrible but also not good," he said, turning back toward the documents on the desk, "but I hope will not matter. A Czech border guard is unlikely to known when German is being spoken with authentic Russian accent." He finished writing in her alias' details. "Give me your British passport."

Ana obliged and retrieved it from the folder in her camera bag. She watched as he delicately picked out her photo from the inside and pasted it in the fake Russian passport. 

"And they won't be able to tell these are forgeries?" she asked, unsure.

"Again, I hope not. These should be passable, although I am not nearly as good as your uncle," he admitted. 

Uncle Napoleon, foraging official documents. Somehow that seemed entirely appropriate for him. What still didn't make sense to her was how this man and her uncle had ever became friends.

"How did you come to meet my uncle anyway?" 

"The world of intelligence is smaller than most think, is not unusual for the paths of agents to cross many times. I knew him this way," he explained. 

"And you never tried to kill each other at any point?"

He thought for a moment, reflecting on memories that no doubt went back decades. "Only twice," he said nonchalantly as though he were discussing casual coffee dates, "three if you count time we were ordered to kill the other but did not."

"Why not?" she wondered. 

"He saved my life on a mission," he divulged. "Then he returned something that had been stolen from me. I was indebted to him."

"He saved your life on a mission?" Ana said slowly. "You _worked_ together?"

The man glanced over his shoulder at her, eyes flickering with uncertainty in the lamplight. 

"It was temporary thing," he replied, brushing it off.

She opened her mouth to ask further questions but it quickly turned into a yawn and she was cut off.

"We will have early start," he stated, "you should sleep." 

Like her hunger, Ana's exhaustion hit her full force at only the mention of sleep. She walked over to the couch which, under normal circumstances, she would not touch with a ten foot pole. In her state, however, it felt like a feather bed, despite the springs digging into her. She watched Illya at the desk, silhouetted in the lamplight, as he continued working on the passports before her eyes dropped closed and she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.  
____

Illya put the final touches on the documents. They weren't perfect but there was no way around it. The forgeries would have to do. 

He glanced back at Ana who had quickly fallen asleep on the couch. Safe from her suspicious eyes and prying questions, Illya could finally allow himself marvel at the fact that she was here, with him, _speaking_ to him. True it wasn't the best of circumstances...in fact it was difficult to imagine how much worse it could actually be, but at this point any interaction with his daughter far outweighed the helpless isolation he had been subjected to throughout her life. 

It had become progressively more difficult for Gaby to arrange logistics just so for Illya to be able to see Ana on an annual basis. Her new responsibilities at university made it nearly impossible and as such, Illya had not seen Ana in over three years. He was taken aback by how much she had grown in that time. Not just physically, though she had lost nearly all her ungainly girlishness, but she acted with a secure confidence and, he had to admit, more than a little arrogance that only came with age and education. She was no longer a child by any definition. Ana was at the brink of completing university, about to start a career and head out into the world on her own. She had even found herself a partner...apparently. 

He quietly ground his teeth thinking of the boy. Illya didn't want to admit to himself that she as old enough for... _that_. He always liked to imagine that she would be much too focused on her studies to get herself involved with the nonsense of young men. He supposed it was only a matter of time, though he had envisioned meeting her before she had moved on with a partner and started her own family. What need would she have of a father then? As it happens, she had decided she didn't need a father long before that...

When he had last seen Gaby and she had told him of Ana's decision Illya felt as though the wind had been knocked out of his lungs with a cruel sucker punch. He had done his best to keep himself together whilst with Gaby, telling her that he understood, that this is what they had agreed to, that it was Ana's decision and they should respect it. When Gaby had cried he had only said _it's okay_ even though it wasn't. He wasn't okay.

Upon his return to Moscow he quickly lost control, drinking himself into oblivion, hoping to lose his senses, hoping to forget what Gaby had told him. His housekeeper had found him unconscious, thought he was dead from the amount of blood that seeped from the wound on his scalp after he must have hit the bathroom sink on his way down. The doctors had given him something to help him sleep, to take the edge off, and he had existed in a fog of routine and pills ever since, throwing himself on any assignment he could find to help distract him from hopeless abyss that existed in his mind. 

But now she slept on the small couch in their dingy safe house, slightly curled around herself. Her hair fell across her face and he had to resist the urge to walk over and brush the strands away so he might see her better. She had his colouring but her mother's face, sharp and angular, with indefinable features that were solely Ana. The scabbed-over bruise from her arrest still marred her cheek bone. If only he could find out which officer had treated her so cruelly...

She didn't know who he truly was but she trusted him enough to sleep in his presence. It was something. 

He could sense her curiosity growing, piquing now and again and catching him off guard. He wasn't sure if she continued with her questions whether he could deflect them indefinitely. He wouldn't burden her with the truth if she didn't want to hear it, but if she came to her own conclusions? 

He shook his head. He shouldn't let himself expect so much from this chance encounter. Even if she would never know the truth about him he would at the very least have the comfort of knowing he had seen her safely out of this precarious ordeal. 

And when he would set her off across that border and he'd recede back into obscurity he commanded himself that it would be enough. It was more than he ever should have hoped for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to update! I was unable to get any writing done while I was home with my family. Watching me sit around writing fan fiction was not one of their planned activities needless to say. Luckily I had a 10 hour layover in which I cranked out most of this with the aide of the 'Stranger Things' soundtrack (I had no idea I was missing so much 80's synthesizer in my life...)
> 
> Sergey Ivanov was the name of the fake architect from the movie right? Please correct me if I am wrong. Also, in case you were wondering as I was, apparently Soviet passports were handwritten even in the late 1980's. At least that is what I have found in my research. Once again, correct me if I am wrong. Just seems very strange...
> 
> Anyway, thank you once again for all your kudos, comments and subscriptions. The next chapter should be up much sooner than the last one.


	6. And I ran, I ran so far away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaby gets a phone call. Illya and Ana have a rude awakening.

Gaby had to take a deep breath to calm herself before she lost control of her temper. With a patience she didn't know she was able to possess in a moment such as this she interrupted the stream of words coming over the phone.

"Tobias _What. Happened_?"

"Ana and I...we were arrested-" he said quickly, finally coming to the climax of his panicked and jumbled story.

"In East Berlin." she said, hoping she was wrong.

"Yes."

Gaby clutched the handset fiercely and mouthed a silent profanity into the phone. "Where are you now Tobi?" she asked, her voice clipped and beginning to waiver with fear and rage.

"West Berlin," he said but before Gaby can give a sigh of relief he continued, "but Ana is still behind the Wall-"

Her fragile resolve snapped. "What do you mean she's still behind the Wall?!" she shouted into the phone. Lucky for him he wasn't telling this to her face. If he thought the Volkspolizei were bad...

"She was taken to Stasi headquarters, they were suspicious of her camera and her interviews...they thought she was a spy-"

Gaby sat on the couch and raked her hands through her hair. This was worse than anything she feared might happen,

"But someone came and retrieved her and she came back to my family's home-"

"Who came and retrieved her?! Why didn't she come back with you?!"

"There was this Russian," he said hesitantly, knowing he was getting to the most troublesome part, "he said he knew Ana's uncle, the American, and she believed him and he told her they could go through the border in Hungary without-"

"A Russian?" Gaby cut in.

"I told her not to go with him!" Tobi began in defense, hearing the madness of his own story, "but she was convinced-"

"Did you get his name? What did he look like?!"

Tobias paused, confused at what sounded like hope in Gaby's voice. "He was tall...probably my father's age. Blond but greying. Ana said his name was Illya...Karak-"

"Kuryakin?!" Gaby implored.

"...possibly..." Tobias replied, unsure, "Ana wasn't even certain herself-"

"And they're going to Hungary?!"

"He said she wouldn't have trouble crossing the border there now that they are taking it down..." he paused a beat, "do you know who this man is?" he asked, a prick of realisation in his voice, before he was abruptly hung up on.

Gaby quickly picked up the handset again and dialed Solo. She rang his home phone and got no answer. She hung up again and dialed the number for the ridiculous 'mobile' phone that he had started carrying around with him.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Solo! I just got a call from-"

"Hello?!" he said more loudly over the sound of traffic and car horns in the background.

 _Mein Gott_ , she'd prefer contacting him via Morse code over this! "Damn it Napoleon, go somewhere quiet!" she shouted. 

A few moments pass and the background ambiance died down, Solo's voice came in clearly, "Better?"

"I just got a call from Tobias. Ana was arrested in East Berlin!"

There was a deep exhale of breath on the line. "Is she being detained?" he asked.

"No, she's not," Gaby informed him, "because she was released by Illya."

"Well I'll be damned..." came the reply over the phone.

"Did you tell him she was going to be in Berlin?" Gaby asked earnestly.

"I did," Napoleon admitted, "I know I should have asked your permission but it was just in case of an emergency...you know how she gets involved in these things...and I knew there was a chance he'd be there with Gorbachev's lot-"

"I'm not angry," Gaby said, although all her instincts from the past twenty years told her she should be. There was no hiding the secret now, she thought. "He's taking her to the Hungarian border so she won't have to go through a checkpoint...God, Napoleon do you think anything could happen to them?" she wondered anxiously.

"It's hard to imagine her in more competent hands," Napoleon soothed, "he's a seasoned spy who knows his way around behind the Curtain...not to mention he's her father!" he almost laughed.

"How is he able to do this? Help her escape right under their noses?"

Napoleon paused, thinking carefully. "He either gave one hell of an excuse or he's saying 'fuck it' and risking a burn notice for her..."

"Do you think anyone will make the connection?" Gaby asked quietly.

"It's possible..." Napoleon replied, grave.

If someone cared enough to dig up the long buried details they were sure to find that Illya was involved in UNCLE alongside Gaby, and it didn't take a super spy to figure out why the man was going to such great lengths to get the girl to safety. It's the exact scenario that Gaby had feared all these years; why she had done everything to keep Ana's paternity a secret even from her. Gaby couldn't ask her former colleagues at MI6 to help for the same reason.

"I need to go there," Gaby decided.

"Gabs," Napoleon said lowly, "you know you can't go back behind that Wall. Not now. Besides, you have no idea where they are at the moment. Just trust that Illya knows what he is doing and in a day or two they'll be in Hungary, safely on their way back."

"I just can't sit here twiddling my thumbs while they are both over there!" Gaby exclaimed.

"Well you certainly can't go marching up to a checkpoint expecting that they'll roll out the red carpet for you," Napoleon said bitterly.

Gaby contemplated her options, how she could get around..."I'll go to Hungary as well," Gaby said confidently, "they're letting people out so they won't be turning them away either and by the time I get there Illya and Ana should be close."

"A welcome party then?" Napoleon considered.

Gaby's body was still tense with anxiety and worry but she felt a smile forming on her lips nonetheless as she thought about seeing Illya and Ana, together. _A homecoming_.

"Let's just hope they make it that far," she said to Napoleon, worry clouding her thoughts once again.  
___

Illya awakened to see light seeping in from under the curtains. He raised slowly from the floor, his back aching from the uncomfortable position. He was getting too old for this...

Ana was still asleep and would probably remain so for several more hours if given the opportunity, but they needed to make their way back to the car and get on the road. The sooner they are out of East Germany, the better. 

He peaked out the window to see the street below him. He saw several commuters making their way to work, a few small Trabis winding their way through the neighbourhood. Nothing out of the ordinary. Illya was about to close the curtain when he spotted a white lorry rounding the corner down the street. 

It was unmarked, and there would be nothing extraordinary about it to the untrained eye, but he knew better than to ignore such vehicles. It was just the right size to house surveillance equipment and its slower than necessary speed told him it was possible that it could be searching for a signal. Or had already found one.

 _The car_ , he thought. He had been in such a state when he had found out Ana had been arrested that he had not checked his borrowed vehicle to make sure it had not been equip with a tracking device.

He cursed himself and closed the curtain, walking over to Ana and nudging her awake.

"Get up," he barked, "we need to leave."

"What-?" she mumbled blearily, half asleep.

"We have been tracked and we have to leave. Now."

The girl's eyes went wide in fear but she snapped to attention surprisingly quickly and began gathering her things. Illya made sure he had their documents and his gun then headed for the door. 

They couldn't go back to the car, nor did they have the time or cover to hot wire another in the area. They'd have to go to the train station. Illya hated trains. There was no opportunity to reroute and behind the Curtain they were constantly stopped for random checks. His oversight, however, meant they had no choice. 

They ran down the stairs of the building, avoiding the front entrance and the truck that no doubt still lurked on the street. He opened the door to what looked like a utility room, hoping for any evidence of a back entrance. They were in luck when he saw another door, further back, light streaming through the cracks along its edges. Two kicks sent the door flying open and he and Ana trudged through an overgrown rear garden and climbed the fence bordering it. 

Illya struggled to gather his bearings as he tried to remember what direction the station was from their safe house. He turned right, deciding to follow the direction of the commuters.

"Keep up," Illya said lowly as he set a quick pace, "but do not look panicked. We do not want to attract attention."

She swallowed nervously and nodded, following his stride. He hoped the truck will remain distracted by the signal coming from the car. If they have already found it empty, however, they could be searching the entire area for two people matching their description. 

As they headed further into the city centre the number of people on the street thickened. It was both a boon and a curse; easier for them to disappear but there was no saying the people in the crowd weren't the ones hunting them.

Illya began to notice oddities in this particular morning commute, however. The sheer number of young people around him was greater than normal, hardly any dressed for a professional job, and most were agitated, if not altogether running toward the station.

"What's going on?" Ana asked, picking up on the tension as well.

Illya could not answer because he didn't not know. 

Dresden Hauptbahnhof station loomed before them, a swarm of people about the main entrance, pushing their way through. Every moment more people arrived to try to get into the train station. Illya and Ana climbed the steps to try to see around the throng as it bottled-necked before the door.

Sirens sounded behind them as several police cars arrived at the scene.

“дерьмо,“ Illya cursed, grabbing Ana’s arm and pushing through the crowd and into the station.

Inside hundreds accumulated around the main platform to their right, the entire station echoing with shouts both angry and celebratory. A train passed slowly by the platform, its doors and windows sealed shut, save small openings at the top for ventilation in which the passengers extended arms to wave and encourage the crowd a mere metre away on the platform. They threw East German passports and transit visas from the carriage and onto the police and security guards holding the mob back from the platform edge.

Ana and Illya were pushed forward as the crowd thickened behind them. Ana grabbed the sleeve of someone trying to push past her.

"What's happening?" she asked in her accented German.

The man looked at her incredulously. "It's a refugee train from the embassy in Prague, heading to West Germany," the man said before wedging himself through the people standing in front of them.

East German defectors who had been making their way to Hungary, in much the same way they were, had entered the grounds of the West German embassy in Prague and refused to leave until they received West German passports. Erich Honecker, East Germany's unpopular leader, had been furious at the gall of the defectors and wanted them removed, agreeing to let them pass through the country on trains to West Germany with the condition they'd leave and never come back. Now it was apparent other East Germans weren't going to sit by idly as a ride to freedom came through their city.

Ana looked up at him, "Do you think I can get on that train?!"

Illya peered over the heads of the people in front of him. There was a human chain of guards preventing anyone from boarding the train and by the sounds of it, more police were beginning to make their way into the station, no doubt to break up the crowd and allow the train to pass. Illya wasn't going to stick around to see the results. 

"No," he said, "we need to get on another train and out of this country." He had had more than enough of East Germany for a lifetime and he wouldn't mind if it all fell apart behind him as soon as they left. 

Illya craneed his neck to see the platforms on the other side of the station. They needed a train headed south to Czechoslovakia. He turned and beckoned Ana to follow as they cut sideways through the crowd.

It was slow going but the more people they put between them and the police and whatever agents may be following them, the better. They weren't the only ones trying to simply get around the crowd to the other trains as they saw two older men harshly elbowing anyone in their way as they pushed past.

"Get out of the way!" one of the men barked, "some of us have jobs and places to be!"

"Piss off old man!" a boy no older than nineteen turned and shouted over his shoulder to the amusement of his neighbours. "We want out of here!" 

"Good riddance!" the man attempted to yell over the sound of their cheers.

Using Illya as her human battering ram, Ana drove them through the remainder of the throng and within reach of the opposite platforms headed south. A train for Prague was due to leave in four minutes, promising to take them out of East Germany and away from whomever was tracking their signal. 

"All the ticket booths are closed," And noticed as they approached the loitering train, the attendants no doubt called in to assist in holding the crowd back from the refugees. 

The last thing they needed was to be apprehended on the train for not having something as simple as a ticket. He cursed himself once again for not having the foresight to forge tickets as a backup. 

They looked about for an alternative, seeing the two older men from a moment ago making their way toward the train destined for Prague.

"Stay here," Ana said as she strode off.

She made to walk back in the direction of the crowd and roughly collided with the louder of the two men.

"Watch where you are going!" he snapped, adjusting his jacket. 

"Excuse me," she said meekly as they continued on toward the train. After a moment she turned about and returned to Illya grabbing his sleeve and leading them toward one of the carriages.

Once on the train she handed Illya a ticket.

"We're lucky he was carrying both of them or I'd have to think of an excuse to bump into them again," Ana said as she took a seat.

Illya rolled the door to their compartment shut. "You learned this trick from your uncle," he didn't even bother phrasing it as a question. 

"He always said it would come in handy someday," she smiled proudly.

Ana gave an audible sigh of relief when the train lurched forward and began its trek out of Dresden, due south. 

"Will they continue to follow us, even after we leave East Germany?" Ana asked, concern still lingering in her voice after their narrow escape. 

Illya considered for a moment, unsure of how much he should divulge to the girl. He didn't want to cause her anymore anxiety than needed, but he decides to be truthful nonetheless.

"The Stasi, technically, should not operate on Czech territory," he explained, "and certainly not to look for one young woman," he hoped at least. "I am more concerned with staying ahead of my colleagues in case they come looking for me...but they no longer have tracker to follow, so will be more difficult for them."

"Will they try to punish you for this?" Ana asked, uneasy and somewhat apologetic. 

"It is possible, if I cannot explain my absence or if our friend Werner told them about you." It wouldn't take the KGB long to make the connection if they find out one of their colonels made a clandestine escape with the daughter of a foreign agent he used to work with around the same time the girl was born. Chances are, they already had if they had tracked the car. Illya had hoped for more time before the fallout...

"For now, we should worry about the border crossing and our covers," he said, handing Ana her false documents, "I will do most talking. Speak only when spoken to and try to keep English accent to minimum."

He went over their covers; he was a Russian architect based in East Germany, recently hired to design a new resort on Lake Balaton in Hungary. Ana was his daughter on break from her studies, joining her father on a trip to inspect the site and to holiday in Hungary. Not for the first time, he wished his cover of being an ordinary man with an ordinary life were actually true. 

"Did you just make that up off the top of your head?" Ana asked.

"I have used variations of this cover before," he explained. 

"And no one has ever told you that you don't exactly _look_ like an architect or designer?" she inquired skeptically, smiling slightly. 

"I am not regular frivolous, soft-boned architect," he defended, "I am Soviet architect."

Ana gave a short bark of laughter. She smiled out the window before her brows furrowed slightly, lost in a thought. 

Forty minutes and a few stops later their train slowed as they approached the border to Czechoslovakia. 

"Border officials will board shortly," Illya said. "Ready?"

Ana nodded, feigning confidence. "Of course, отец," she said slipping into their cover.

Illya nodded back, forcing himself not to smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Actual Photo](http://blog.videona.es/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/wall-street-cell-phone-michael-douglas.jpg) of Napoleon Solo, aged like fine wine, with his giant 80's cell phone.
> 
> I hope I am not bogging you all down with the historical aspects of this fic. My intent is to give a more interesting background to this part of the story rather than just have the two of them sitting in a car for 10 hours, but I can also see how some might find it a little tedious. I am trying my best just to give the _light_ version, but if you want more details:
> 
> The 'freedom trains' as they were known carried East German refugees who were camped out on the lawn of the West German embassy in Prague out of the Eastern Bloc and to West Germany. The East German government made it seem like it was a punishment (that they were being exiled and stripped of their citizenship) but obviously the refugees were thrilled and the government was really just embarrassed by them and wanted them out of their hair. They had the trains travel through East Germany so they could make the ride long and inconvenient (and to generally just be d*cks) but that too backfired when other East Germans tried to throw themselves onto the trains as they passed. Many people tossed their GDR passports out the window which I think is awesome. The rides lasted from the 1st of October '89 to the 8th so my fic is off by a day but I'm sure you won't lose sleep over that discrepancy.
> 
> Also, it's been exactly one year since I started writing for this fandom! A year later and I'm still stuck in the TMFU/Gallya trash can!!! Yay...Omg...


	7. It's all been a pack of lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illya and Ana take a detour

The train shook to a stop just across the border. Illya willed himself to remain calm; this was nothing he hasn't done dozens of times before, but with Ana in tow and their precarious circumstances, he couldn't help but feel an irritating twinge of anxiety as though he were an untried agent on his first mission. 

He saw a group of border officials gather on the platform briefly before separating and boarding different carriages to make the rounds. He hoped this wouldl go quickly for them, but the disorder in Dresden meant there were few people on the train and the guards could take their time about it.

Illya was surprised, and more than a little bit proud, to see Ana so composed and in-character. She hardly exhibited a fidget or tick that anyone with a trained eye would read as latent unease. In another world and with more training maybe she could have made quite the spy, Illya thought.

The door to their compartment rattled open and Illya looked up to see a uniformed young man no older than Ana. He stopped himself from giving a sigh of relief. This person would be too inexperienced to recognise a foraged document at a brief glance, unlike some of his older and more discerning colleagues. 

"Dobré ráno," he greeted, "guten Morgen. Papers and tickets please."

Illya and Ana removed their documents from their pockets and handed it to the guard. 

"What is your purpose for traveling to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic?" the young man asked as he checked their transit visas. 

"We are passing through," Illya answered casually, "on our way to Hungary for my work."

The young man opens their passports. "Russians," he said.

Illya nodded. 

He glanced at each of them. "You are related?" he asked. 

"I am her father," Illya replied confidently, knowing that he'd pass a polygraph if the man had one on him.

"Ah, good," the young man laughed, "I was going to tell you she is much too young if she were your wife!"

Ana shifted awkwardly in her seat and just barely faked a sour smile while Illya glared. The guard looked down at her passport again and Illya felt his heart-rate pick up as the man considered the document. 

"'Anastasia'," the young man looked at Ana, smiling, "like the lost princess."

Ana smiled back politely, saying nothing, slightly side-eying Illya who wanted to roll his own eyes in exasperation. 

The man looked down again and frowned. "This picture," he said slowly and Illya's breathe hitched as he expected exposure,"...it does not do you justice."

Illya and Ana shared a stunned glance and the little Lothario had the nerve to look down at her with a flirtatious grin. Ana's eyes went wide and she arched a brow at him. "Thank you...?" she murmured with an indeterminate accent. 

"What do you plan to do while you are in Hungary?" he asked, sniveling little grin still on his boyish face. 

Illya ground out, "I will be work-"

"Yes, yes. You will be working," the shit cut in, dismissing Illya before turning back to Ana, "but surely you'll be wanting to doing something more exciting than hanging around your father and his workplace? Will you be visiting Budapest?"

Ana gaped for a moment, looking to Illya in confusion, "I- I'm not sure that's part of our plans-"

"You should go to Budapest," he said oily, "and visit the baths. They are beautiful, as are most of the women there...but you will give them some competition." 

_ублюдок_! Illya ground his teeth. _Little power drunk prick_! If this had been any other setting...

"I think we will be busy when we are there," Ana said pointedly, "but thank you for the suggestion."

"If you say so," he shrugged, "it just seems a crime for a beautiful woman to miss the opportunity to bathe in her bikini...or perhaps nude? They do allow that..."

Illya's hand tightened into a fist and he was about to stand when Ana caught his eye with a stern look. _Calm down_. He loosened his hand. "Is there issue with our documents," Illya growled, finger tapping on the edge of the seat, "or may we continue on our way. Surely you have other people to check."

The boy turned back to him. "Hardly anyone is on this train and we do not want to be ahead of the timetable. Besides, I usually do not have such intriguing passengers," he said looking Ana up and down. 

She shifted uncomfortably under his predatory gaze and feigned interest in something out the window. 

The guard took one more lingering look at her passport photo before handing it back to her, making sure their fingers brushed. He all but threw Illya's passport back at him.

"My name is Honza by the way," he smiled, "I will be riding this train back to Prague to visit my family for the week-"

_Of course he will, little pervert, making everything complicated._

"...maybe I will see you around?" he winked at Ana with none of the charisma that Cowboy would be able to pull off before turning to leave. 

The door to the compartment had barely slid shut when Illya snarled, "Disrespectful son of a-"

"It's fine," Ana cut him off before he can explode, "we're lucky he didn't suspect anything was amiss with our documents. It could have been much worse."

"Now we have to ride on train with him all the way to Prague..." Illya continued grumbling.

"It's only a few hours," she ratonalised, "and then we only need to jump on another train to Hungary where I can cross the border. We're nearly done."

Illya nodded, calming down. She was right, of course, but it didn't give him any comfort. In little over a day she will be in Austria, safe, but with the caveat that he'd never see her again. 

"What will you do, when you get back?" he asked, hoping that she would distract him from his encroaching sadness.

"After this?" she said with a huff of laughter, "Be relieved that I'm not being hunted by secret police...although the prospect of facing my mother isn't much better."

He smiled, knowing full well the wrath she would soon face. "She will be upset with you."

"She can't get _too_ angry with me. It's not like she hasn't ever done something reckless," Ana pointed out, "hopefully me and her can go back to the way things used to be and put all this behind us..."

 _And continue to pretend I never existed_ , Illya thought, finding that the impending pain was unavoidable. 

"And you?" she asked.

He looks over to see her studying him with a mixture of curiosity and pity. 

"I will manage," he dismissed, "I always have."  
___

The train stopped periodically along their route at various small Czech villages throughout the Bohemian countryside. Ana and Illya watched those waiting on the platform carefully. So far no one had looked suspicious, and Ana felt a wash of relief every time they left a station and headed closer to Prague.

Illya excused himself to use the bathroom halfway through their journey. Ana was finally beginning to feel her frayed nerves relax when the compartment door opened and Honza the guard lurked at the entrance.

"Ahoj," he said with his same annoying smile, "enjoying your trip?"

Ana resisted the urge to tell him off as she had done many times to clueless or aggressive men in the past. She couldn't risk making a scene under the circumstances, however, so she feigned being polite but disinterested, hoping he'd take the hint.

"Yes, thank you," she said looking out the window at nothing in particular. 

"I apologise for earlier," he said, "I did not mean to insinuate anything by mentioning the baths or to upset your father for that matter."

"It's fine," she glanced at him and quickly away.

"Your father, he has quite the temper. Does he hit you?" he asked suddenly, indicating her cheek.

"What-?" Ana said, caught off guard, her hand touching her face, feeling self-conscious. "Oh, no. This, uh...I fell..." she answered lamely. 

The boy hummed, clearly not believing a word she had said, but looking even more interested than before. He was one of those men who notices an abused woman and instead of having sympathy for her sees an opportunity. She felt her stomach churn in disgust. 

"How old are you?" he wondered.

"I'm twenty-one," she answered even though what she really wanted to tell him is that it's none of his damn business. 

"So am I," he said, as though she cares. "You know you are old enough to go off on your own, right? You do not need to follow your father around."

"It's my decision to travel to Hungary with my father, thank you, he's not forcing me," she said perhaps a bit too sternly. 

He narrowed his eyes slightly at her, not liking her tone. "Why is it you are going to Hungary again?" he asked, already knowing damn well why they were going. 

As he spoke Illya arrived silently in the corridor behind him. Ana avoided looking at him, instinctively knowing he didn't want her acknowledging him, instead focusing on the man in front of her. 

"For my father’s work," Ana bit out.

Illya stood immediately behind the man, who was yet unaware of his presence. Ana forced herself to focus on Honza's face, all the while wondering what the hell the Russian was up to. 

"And then you will return to East Germany?" Honza asked, curious.

From the corner of her eye she sees Illya raise his right arm parallel to the floor and position his hand just behind the boy's ear. 

"Uh, yes...after a few days..." Ana said, intensely staring at a spot between the guard's brows. 

"I've heard that quite a bit lately," he said slowly, suspiciously, Illya's hand taking aim. "People living in East Germany saying they are away for only a few days and then they never-"

Illya's right palm connected with the boy's temple in a harsh slap, while the left caught his tilted head. Honza's eyes went shut and he stood in place, swaying slightly from the movement of the train.

Ana stared, aghast. "What did you do to him?!" she gasped. 

"At KGB we call it 'the kiss'" he explained matter-of-factly as he maneuvered around the boy to grab his bag. 

"Is he alive?!" she cried, still in shock from what she had just seen.

"Yes," he said, sounding disappointed. "Although he is standing upright he is completely unconscious. He will be like this for twenty minutes. Can't touch," he warned. 

"Why did you do that?!"

"He was asking too many questions!" Illya barked.

"And now what are we going to do?!" she snapped back. "When he wakes up and realizes you assaulted him, he's going to have us arrested!"

Illya grabbed her bag. "No he is not because we are getting off at next stop," he said taking their things and heading out into the corridor. 

"But we are nowhere near Prague!" she called after him. She looked up at the unconscious boy standing before her, eerily peaceful. She growled with agitation and stood to follow Illya.

The train began to slow as it came through a little village of quaint stone medieval houses. As soon as the train jolted to a stop Illya swiftly opened the door and disembarked. Ana followed him out onto the platform.

They exited the small station and turned onto the village's main road heading out of town and into the rolling country. 

"I could have handled it you know," Ana said as she followed behind him, "he was just being a creep. It's not like I haven't dealt with his type before."

"Again, he ask too many questions," Illya barked back at her, "and made advances while I was sitting just there. He would have been trouble!"

"So you just bash him unconscious instead?!"

"He deserved it! He is lucky I did not break him!"

"Calm down Ivan Drago," Ana mocked, "and I don't know what you're so upset about, I'm not even your real daughter!"

Illya turned on her. "As far as he was concerned, you are. And until we cross that border, you are. So like I said, he deserved it!"

He twisted and stalked back down the road.

"You need to control your temper!" she called, before reluctantly following him once again.

She wondered how such a seemingly practical man could have such an irrational outburst. And over what? His behaviour was perplexing at best and simply wasn't adding up. Why was he doing any of this?

They walked for a mile, both fuming before stopping by a small stone bridge crossing a softly babbling river. Ana dropped her bags on the ground.

"Where are we even going?" she asked, out of breath. 

"We are walking to the next village and taking bus to Prague," he grunted, "we cannot get back on a train."

"Obviously," she sighed. 

Illya set his bag down and removed a few magazines for his gun, stuffing them in his pockets. He tore up the remaining materials for false documents and threw them into the water passing under the bridge. 

"Only bring what you can carry on you or in your camera bag," he ordered. "We will be walking far and do not need anything slowing us down."

Ana went through her belongings and removed only what she needed, hoping some Czech girl finds her bag and enjoys her western clothes. Ana grasped at her mother's necklace at the bottom of the bag. She removed it and considered the bauble for a moment, the false diamonds catching the afternoon light. So much for being good luck, she thought. Would she ever be able to look at it again without being reminded of her mother's deception and how it had incriminated her with the Stasi? Probably not, she supposed and went to leave it in the bag. She reconsiders, however, not wanting some poor local girl to get into trouble like she had for unknowingly wearing a tracking device.

Ana walked to the bridge. She dangled the necklace to drop it into the river's depths when it is abruptly snatched out of her hand. The Russian gave her a side-eyed glare and stuffed the necklace into his jacket pocket without explanation. 

She looked at him in irritated confusion, her hand still hovering in space.

"Come, we need to keep moving," he instructed before continuing over the bridge. 

The walk was silent aside from the sound of their shoes on the gravely road. Ana watched the back of his blond head as they trekked, wondering what this man was hiding. Why was he risking arrest and defection for some stranger he'd never met and then attack a border guard on her behalf? Any spy with an ounce of sense would have determined one hapless foreign girl wasn't worth the trouble of possible imprisonment as soon as he found out he was being tracked. 

There was more to this man's story than he was letting on and it made Ana uneasy. She wanted to know more but at the same time was afraid of what the details may hold. She had the sudden desperate urge to delve back into her mother' file but there was no opportunity as she struggled to keep up with his fast pace. 

The autumn sun was nearly setting behind the colourful forested hills in the distance when they reached the largest town in the area which was little more than a hamlet. In the main square they searched out the bus stop only to find no buses ran on a Sunday. Their luck was running thin, it seemed.

"Now what?" Ana huffed in frustration. 

"We passed a campsite not far back, we will stay there for evening and take bus in the morning," he determined, not sounding at all pleased.

Ana rubbed her face in aggravation. "Surely there is another way into Prague from here..."

Illya ignored her and turned to walk back out of the town and down the road they just came in on. "If you can think of other way that does not have us arrested for getting back on train or for stealing car then I would like to know. Otherwise, we are going to camp!"

"Don't take this out of me," she scowled from behind him, "you're the one who decided to help me, I didn't ask for this."

"It's my responsibility and I am taking you to the border!" he said sharply over his shoulder. 

"Responsibility to whom?!" she asked, point blank. "It doesn't make any sense. You should have just left me in Dresden as soon as you knew the Stasi, or KGB or whoever were on to us! Why are you doing this?!"

Her words fell on seemingly deaf ears as she received no response. She needed no further evidence to know he was hiding something. In her frustration she refused to let him off easily, and asked him the questions that had been gnawing at the back of her mind since they met. 

"You were involved in that UNCLE oragnisation weren't you?" Ana said slowing her steps, "my mother's file mentions it...That's how you know Napoleon, how you worked with him."

Illya didn't deny anything she said, but kept trudging ahead.

Ana hurried her steps to catch up and followed immediately behind. "My uncle was with the CIA...my mother was MI6...apparently...and you were from the KGB weren't you?"

He remained infuriatingly silent so she grabbed his sleeve to bring him to a halt.

"You're not helping me because of Napoleon. You're helping me because of my mother. You knew _both_ of them," she stated, nearly breathless. 

He turned and looked at her slowly, an unreadable expression on his face.

"I did."

They stood there, in the middle of the road, eyes locked in an intense stalemate that made her heart pound against her sternum. Ana stared up at solemn blue eyes, identical to those she had last seen in the safe house's damaged mirror the night prior. She could feel the blood drain from her face as realisation washed over her.

He broke eye contact and the tension shattered, leaving her to recover from the shell shock of a near miss, feet rooted to the ground, staring stunned into the space he just vacated.

"Come," he said quietly, "it is almost nightfall."

She clenched her jaw and turned to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be the _big_ one.


	8. You will see light in the darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ana confronts Illya.

The autumn sun had set behind the treeline bringing a crisp chill to the air when they arrived at the campground that they had passed earlier. It was late in the season and there were few patrons but Ana managed to buy a tent and materials off a departing family who were more than happy to relieve her of the remaining West German deutschmarks in her wallet. They chose a spot a good distance from the other fires, which was fine by her as she planned to get to the bottom of who this man was and she didn't want to concern herself with eavesdroppers.

Illya threw down a pile of logs and fed a few into their growing fire. He had remained stonily silent since she had asked about her mother, not once making eye contact with her. The rage and frustration he had displayed earlier was gone, replaced by a nervous edginess she had not seen on him even when they were escaping their pursuers in Dresden.

Ana sat on one of the larger logs, warming her hands by the fire as she watched him pace about the site, looking for anything to busy himself with. The sun had long since disappeared below the horizon, the stars brilliant this far from the city but it was too early for sleep. He couldn't avoid her for the remainder of the night as much as he seemed to want to. A fox vixen screamed somewhere far off in the inky blackness of the surrounding woods.

"Sit down," she said, poking the fire with a stick, watching the tip ignite with orange flame. He glanced over at her and she knew she must be a foreboding sight, the flames casting wavering shadows across her face.

He obeyed her command, sitting on the opposite side of the pit, his features shivering from the heat just above the fire. 

A small part of her, the part that was scared and stubborn and still healing from years of rejection wanted to remain silent, let whoever this man was pass through her life like many kind strangers had in the past. It was by far the easier option, to let her suspicions remain just that: suspicions, never confirmed or denied. The child in her, however, ever curious and hopeful, demanded the truth if he was indeed the person who was able to give it.

"Why didn't you tell me you knew my mother, when we first met?" Ana finally asked, voice hardly louder than the snapping of the burning logs between them.

Illya stared into the flames, eyes fixated on the pulsating glow of the embers. He thought for a moment, decided to defend himself. "That room was bugged from ceiling to floor, I could not so much as-"

"I don't mean in Stasi headquarters, I mean once you had me alone," she responded sharply. "You said you knew my uncle, why not my mother?"

The blue of his eyes was lost in the firelight, instead they were dark pools only marred with flashes of white as he glances at her. She didn't need a mirror to know hers must look much the same. 

"It would complicate matters," he said lowly. "If we were caught and Werner or another Stasi agent or any of my colleagues were to question what we knew of each other, what I know of you..."

Ana's eyes flashed defensively in the darkness. "You don't know _anything_ about me-"

"I know _much_ about you," he challenged with a quavering voice, his reserve finally weakening to expose the rawness within. 

Ana's pulse quickened at his sudden show of emotion, knowing she could push him further if she wanted.

"And what is it that you know about me?" she tested, watching the hollow shadows around his eyes. A log collapsed sending brilliant sparks drifting up into the night air. He flinched and tentatively responded as the flames calmed. 

"Your name is Ana Teller, your mother is Gabriella Teller. You were born on the 17th of June, 1968 in King's College Hospital in London."

Ana huffed in surprise if not utter conviction, "I'm fairly certain even the Stasi knew that-"

"When you were five you injure yourself and needed three stitches on your forehead," he continued, focusing on the flames as Ana sat frozen just beyond. "Your closest friend in primary school was a girl named Jane Harper, and your favourite place in New York City is Bryant Park where you like to ice skate at Christmas."

Despite the warmth and proximity of the fire, Ana felt the skin on her neck and arms rise in goose-flesh. No file or stolen document could contain such information, such personal details of the life she had lived. She remained silent, to allow him to continue and to process every word he dared to share with her.

"Your mother's boss was a man named Alexander Waverly who used to give you sweets when your mother was not looking and you have a false uncle named Napoleon who would let you watch inappropriate films also when your mother was not looking."

He adjusted himself on his log, his voice becoming deeper as he recited the facts of her life like a mantra, confident in their authenticity and what they meant to her.

"Your favourite colour is red, you fear deep water even though you can swim, and in your mother's home you refuse to step on cracks between the tile in the foyer because, even as adult, you are still convinced it is bad luck."

Illya looked up from the flames and met her stunned gaze.

"When you were ten years old you wander off in Berlin and got trapped climbing the wall to see the other side and a man helped you down and took you back to your mother."

"How could you possibly know that?" she breathed. It was such a minute detail of her life that even she sometimes failed to remember it. 

"I know this because I was that man."

Ana recalled a vague memory of a tall man who had helped her that day over a decade ago. Her child's memory retained no definitive details of the man's face or what they had spoken of. She's not even certain she told her mother of the encounter. He had been nothing more than a stranger. 

"Who are you?" she asked in earnest, wanting to hear his confirmation, make the moment real and not some figment of her lonely imagination. 

"You said you did not want to know."

Ana stalled for a moment, confused, about to argue that she had never said she didn't want to know. But she had said it, to her mother, when she had refused to hear anything of her father, whoever he may be. 

"It's you," she stammered, barely forming the words, "you're him." Her hands shook in her lap, unrelated to the growing autumn chill.

He peered at her uncertainly with the sombre eyes of a broken man and nodded slowly, awaiting the fallout of her response.

Ana could do nothing but give a small huff of shock. She looked away from the intensity of his eyes, her lungs temporarily robbed of air, her mind reeling, trying to make sense of the realisation. Years of dejection, confusion and anger came crashing back at once, all of it pertaining to the man who sat across from her. "This is impossible..." she uttered, burying her face in her trembling hands.

"I am who I claim to be." 

"Why-" she began, looking up, innumerable nagging questions in her mind clamouring to be first. A lifetime of questions, starved for answers that she had been suppressing since she was old enough to feel the cavernous absence of a missing father. _Why did you leave? Why haven’t you contacted me? Why haven't you been in my life?_ , she couldn't decide which deserved an explanation first. 

She didn't need to struggle for long; he knew what she wanted to hear, had probably practiced the answer in his mind for years. "I have wanted to see you, know you, more than I have wanted anything...but it was not an option," he said with a quiet and cautious sincerity.

Ana stood up, needing to ease her pent-up nerves. She paced away from the fire, raking her fingers across her scalp, glancing back to see the shadowed face of the man who was her father watching her from the edge of the darkness. 

"You could have been killed," he continued, "your mother as well, had our relationships been visible. It is still dangerous." 

Ana walked back toward him, standing within a foot of the fire's edge, feeling the heat crawl up the front of her, threatening to scorch her clothing if she tried to get closer.

"Why wasn't I at the very _least_ told about you, even if I couldn't meet you!" she demanded. "All these years I thought you had to be dead, or abandoned us or were someone so insignificant my mother didn't even remember who you were! I wasn't even offered an explanation until I was an adult and by that point I was too fed-up to care!"

She saw the same fire reflect in his eyes as he looked up to her, a shadow creasing between his brows. 

"I am KGB, you know this much," he rumbled forebodingly. "It goes without saying that KGB agent having a child with an MI6 operative makes for highly volatile situation. You think this is a simple matter that a child would comprehend? Could be trusted with?!" 

He watched the defiance on her features waiver, leaned back from the fire's edge.

"No one could know. Not even you," he said, his voice betraying the regrets of the past.

Ana stepped away and sat down again, watched him with a cautious curiosity.

"Then tell me now," she said, a small threat still in her words. "I want to know everything. No lies."

"I have no reason to lie to you," he claimed, his voice raw. "I am done with the lies."

"From the beginning then."  
___

Ana listened in avid fascination as Illya –this man…her _father_ \- quietly revealed the circumstances of how she came into being. Her wildest childhood hypotheses involving her father now seemed dull in comparison to what had actually transpired. Would she had even believed this had her mother told her? Ana wondered. She couldn't say, but she believed this man, even as the story grew more preposterous, she knew he was telling her the truth.

"That was you?" she cut in. "The KGB agent in the minefield that was mentioned in my mother's file with the Stasi."

"It was, yes," Illya said, somewhat uncomfortable admitting that his first encounter with her mother was one in which he was trying to apprehend her while also attempting to kill Ana's uncle.

"I'm glad you didn't blow up," she said, "and that you didn't shoot Uncle Napoleon."

He gave a huff of laughter.

"I am as well."

She listened as he wove the tale of the birth of their experimental organisation. The first mission the three of them were forced to work on together, attempting to recover Ana's grandfather. Of the false engagement her parents had to put on.

"I don't imagine she was thrilled about that," Ana guessed. "In fact, I can't really see her liking a Russian agent at all." 

"She was not," Illya admitted, "and she did not. At first."

Ana caught herself smiling as he recalled various tales of the three of them, off on far-away missions throughout the mid-60's, an unusual trio of misfits thrown together by circumstance. Ana knew he had been happy in those days, could hear it in his voice and without her even being there, she knew her mother had been as well.

"But it could not last," he said, his voice hardening, "for me or for your uncle. There was a demand to have it ended and it did. I left. I had no choice."

The story darkened as Illya recalls returning to the USSR, cut off from his former partners and the life he had built beyond the Iron Curtain. He didn't go into explicit details - likely for her own sake - but she knew the work he did back in his home agency was of a different variety than what he had done with UNCLE. 

"I thought of defection," he revealed. "I did not want to be a traitor but I still thought of it. I made plan, I hid money. I had every detail prepared, right under the nose of my supervisors."

"What happened?" Ana asked, a nettling feeling telling her she already knew the answer.

"I run into your mother, and soon after there was you," he said almost apologetically, not wanting her to think she was to blame for his failed attempt at freedom.

Ana frowned. It was a cruel twist of fate that two lovers were prevented from being together due to the arrival of a child.

"You couldn't run away with both of us?" Ana asked.

"This was not possible," he sighed. "Two adults trained as spies...maybe it is possible. Still unlikely. But with infant? We all would have been found. Likely killed. Even you."

What followed was a heart-wrenching scenario of disappointment and loneliness that Ana was all too familiar with. While they all had suffered in the preceding years she only then realised that of them all, Illya had made the greatest sacrifice. A willing father, cut-off from his family, his child completely oblivious to his existence for the sake of her own safety. Over two decades of living in the shadows as your own flesh and blood grows to resent you.

Ana felt a sharp pang of shame as she recalled the conversation with her mother when she had attempted to come clean. She wished her mother was here now so she could apologise and thank her for putting her safety above all else.

"Did you love her?" Ana asked suddenly. It didn't truly matter, she convinced herself, in case what they had was merely a physical infatuation, but she hoped it had been more than that.

He looked up, eyes honest and wide and in the flickering light of the dying fire he almost looked like he was only a few years older than her. 

"I do," he responded in the present tense. His English might not have been perfect but Ana knew his word were deliberately chosen. She is surprised by how that small response elicited such a wave of happiness within her. Her entire life Ana had only seen Gaby as a single mother, a loner seemingly immune to romantic love, all the while being loved from afar by Ana's father. 

Despite the overall melancholy if their story Ana was charmed and surprised to hear about the clandestine efforts her parents made to allow Illya to remain connected while they waited for their daughter to grow to adulthood. 

"Every year?" Ana asked, more than a little shocked. 

"Once a year. Nearly. It was an arrangement your mother promised me," he explained. "I saw you. Would see how you have grown. Never speaking, of course, but that one time in Berlin, and only because you were being misfit."

Ana smiled. "I'm glad we met, before. I'm sorry I didn't understand how important it was."

He recalled their various meetings and her ages at the time, where they were…She remembered some of the locations, the trips with her mother, but the small details he described were something new. Hearing them was like reliving the short time she had unknowingly spent with him. They had a history together, without her even being aware of it. 

The fire was nothing more than a pile of glowing embers by the time he finished relating all their encounters. She was awake, if sleepy, chin propped on the heel of her palm, but she refused to miss a word he said. His voice had taken on the same warm comfort as the nearby embers.

"Up," he said, rising. "You need to sleep we still have far to go."

"No, keep talking," her voice was raspy with sleep and she gave a great yawn but she wanted him to continue until morning.

He laughed as he laid out a blanket just outside the tent. "As I said, we still have far to go, you will be sick of my voice by time we are in Hungary, but you need to sleep now." 

She trudged over to the tent, crawled inside and collapsed, physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted but still in awe of the evening's revelation. Her anger and frustration with her mother had died out with the fire and even though she was still stuck behind the Iron Curtain, she felt safe as she heard him shuffling just outside the tent. 

_What if this had never happened?_ she wondered, but quickly pushed the thought away. It had. That was all that mattered.

"доброй ночи," she murmured to him.

"сладкие мечты дочь," he responded and she fell into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to post! I had quite a bit written from awhile ago but it needed to be edited quite a lot as the story evolved. My job which is pretty much dead during the summer has also picked up again so I don't have as much time to write!


	9. Calling calling home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illya makes a decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that the different scenes described in this and the coming chapters are not necessarily happening at the same time. Just in case anyone gets confused...

Illya felt like he had been given a second chance at life. He was still him, of course, a man trapped in a complicated web of split loyalties, secrets and dubious security -the KGB colonel with a secret life beyond the wall- but now that his daughter knew who he was, understood and accepted his story, he felt that his reality was no longer a stagnant wait for some distant tomorrow. 

Even if she had promised him nothing, Illya knew that their journey was no longer about simply getting Ana to the safety of the border. There was a new sense of urgency for self-determination within him. Despite decades of rigorous discipline and self-sacrifice, Illya wanted to take control of his life and claim the family that had been denied him so long. He just needed to take that last step into the unknown, to leave and finally build a relationship with his daughter. 

As they packed up camp he caught her staring at him from time to time, no doubt making note of their physical and behavioral similarities that she had overlooked before she knew his true identity. He was familiar with the impulse; he had had to restrain himself several times over the past days from doing the same. Had to stop himself from making a mental list of traits that came from him or expressions that were inherited from Gaby.

She continued to regard him with a cautious curiosity (they were still little more than strangers) but she tentatively urged him to share more information about himself, his life, her mother and uncle, and the family he had hardly mentioned to anyone in the past thirty five years. For her, he let the barriers fall away. It wasn't after all only his history, it now belonged to her as well. It always had.

So on the winding bus journey through the Bohemian countryside to Prague he related a story that went back generations to when his family - her family - were nothing but bedraggled serfs and later factory workers. They were humble beginnings, but that changed when his grandfather Anatoly stormed the Winter Palace with the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution and the Kuryakin name rose in prominence within the new government. 

His father's story was more complicated of course, a dark contrast to his grandfather's revered heroism, and it cut to see Ana's frown as he related the sad circumstances of his own childhood. Being approached by the KGB was an improbable honour for a man from a disgraced family, he felt he needed to explain. His dedication to an agency and system that even he had long since become disillusioned to had always been one of the issues that he imagined would push his daughter away, that she would openly reject him for it.

"It's not an easy thing for someone where I'm from to wrap their head around," she admitted, "and I find it difficult to imagine you terrorising your own people the way the Volkspolizei and the Stasi do..."

"I have been fortunate. Preventing subversion was not my specialty," he explained, "but in the past, yes. There was much I would not tell you and that I am now ashamed of. It took meeting your mother and Solo for me to realise that."

At the mention of her mother Ana's expression grew somber. 

"I wish my mother were here," she confessed. "All I want to do is apologise to her for everything I have put her through the past few months...and then this. She must be worried sick."

Illya knew that Gaby must be on the war path if the boy from Berlin did manage to return home and contact her. He didn't envy the fallout Ana would face, but he also knew Gaby would be quick to forgive their daughter after she was safely home knowing what the alternative could have been.

"I was very angry with you," Ana continued with her confessions. "I couldn't think of any excusable reason for you to have disappeared. I certainly didn't think of _this_."

"No one would have thought of this," he said with a small laugh.

She gave him a broken smile.

"If I had only listened to my mother when she tried to explain then I would have agreed to meet you and then none of this-"

"There is no use in regretting how things have happened," he interrupted, speaking from extensive experience. "You can only try to not make same mistake."

Ana mulled over his words before turning to him, a hopeful expression shining from her battered, travel-weary face.

"Then I'm asking you now," she said insistently, "come with me. When we get to Hungary, cross the border and we'll go find my mother. Both of us."

Illya was at a loss for words as Ana went on, urgently whispering her plan.

"We'd be able to figure it out. You, me, my mother, Uncle Napoleon...you wouldn't be the first KGB agent to successfully defect."

He scrambled to collect his thoughts and reasoning even if he wanted to join in her enthusiasm. This was the push and final step that he had dreaded. It was proving to be more difficult than he had imagined. 

"Yes," he said carefully, "but those that have were only able to because they sold secrets that ensured their protection. And for every one that has been successful there have been several more that have not."

His concern didn't dampen his daughter's confidence. She had all the hopeful fervor of her generation; the same one that was tearing down walls and bringing governments to their knees. 

"The world is changing. Quickly. Did any of what happened here in the past few months seem possible even a year ago? Maybe you won't need to worry for much longer?"

He sat back in his seat and felt his world teetering on edge. 

"Yes," he said softly.

"Yes you'll come with me?" Ana asked, uncertainty wavering her voice.

"Yes I'll come with you," he confirmed, the magnitude of his choice filling his gut with paralyzing fear and even greater euphoria. 

The smile that spread across her face was contagious and he found himself helplessly mirroring it. It was done. After twenty years waiting and agonizing and suffering, he was coming home. 

When they departed the bus at the depot in central Prague, Illya no longer felt trapped by the crippling encumbrance of his profession or his country. He was as unfettered as the refugees on the trains; leaving everything they knew behind for the promise of something better. 

Ana was in a similar state. No one would ever look at her and see a girl on the run, the way her eyes shone as they made their way through the busy streets to the city's main train station. 

When the pair weaved through the crowds in Prague's Old Town Square Illya's elation tempered as the number of glancing eyes and indistinct conversations increased and swirled around them. Years of highly trained and honed instincts stopped him in his path. He examined the sea of unfamiliar faces around him, searching out whatever it was that caught the attention of his panicked subconscious. 

"Illya," Ana called, looking back to him.

He glanced at his daughter before scanning the crowd again, whatever it was had alerted him was gone. He was imagining things...

Illya caught up with Ana.

"Speaking of..." Ana mused, "It seems odd to use your given name and ‘отец’ feels too formal...what should I call you?"

He thought a moment before landing on a word that would suit them.

"You could call me ба́тя, if you would like," he replied hesitantly in case she were to reject it.

"ба́тя," she tried, and he smiled at the sound of it.

"Yes," she agreed, "I think that will do."

___

"You are certain it was this man?"

The Stasi officer inspected the photograph again and nodded.

"That is him, he is not an easy man to forget," Lieutenant Werner confirmed.

Major General Alexei Sokolov cursed quietly under his breath and set the photo back on his assigned desk in the Berlin hotel suite turned makeshift office. He leaned forward to see past the ajar door to Gorbachev sitting at his own desk nearly screaming into his phone, no doubt on the line with that idiot Németh in Budapest. A harried aide ran out of the room with a stack of papers. Everyone was on edge and this morning's developments certainly weren't going to help.

Lieutenant Colonel Kuryakin was missing. He hadn't met his colleagues or the Head of State for their morning brief, and a call and visit to his room confirmed he wasn't in the building. Hours passed and his absence became worrisome and eventually, suspicious. 

Unlike some of his former colleagues, Sokolov had never considered Kuryakin a flight risk. The man was dependable, loyal and never seemed the type to be seduced by promises of money, notoriety or Western ideals, despite what some of his critical peers may say of his family's reputation. Sokolov never saw traitor's blood in him and Gorbachev trusted him, valued his insight, and as a result Sokolov did as well. 

Apparently he had been mistaken.

A call from military headquarters was even more damning. A Stasi agent who had encountered Kuryakin shortly after his disappearance had found his behaviour odd and followed up on the story the KGB agent had given. And luckily he did. It was the only clue they had on what the missing colonel was planning.

"He left with a girl?" Sokolov asked, incredulous. 

"Only the girl."

"Who was she?" he wondered. 

"Some young British troublemaker the Volkspolizei picked up during the riots," Werner explained. "She seemed inconsequential upon first review but we soon found her mother had been a defector."

Sokolov resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the lieutenant. Their entire country was falling to pieces before their eyes and all these glorified goons could worry about was a defector's slight from decades ago.

"But more importantly," he went on, "the woman worked for MI6, possibly even when she was still in Berlin."

That perked Sokolov's interest. What could Kuryakin possibly want with the child of a former foreign agent?

"Do we know anything else about her, the mother?"

"Admittedly, the file was old, nothing dating after '68," he shrugged. "The most curious part was her involvement in some auxiliary organisation...UNCLE it was called, I believe. I had never heard of it myself and the little I could find while the girl was detained just proved it was short lived and had little involvement in the GDR. Operatives from various agencies were associated with it. Perhaps, you would know more?" Werner hinted.

"UNCLE?" Sokolov wracked his brain and while the name didn't sound familiar in the least, something in the back of his mind went off like an alarm bell.

Sokolov had not worked with Kuryakin prior to Gorbachev's time in office and he certainly didn't know the man personally in the sixties, but he did know through hushed rumours and snide gossip that Kuryakin had been involved in some experiment in the West that took years for him to sweep back under the rug and regain his reputation. It was one of the loose reasons some of Kuryakin's few critics gave for not trusting him. Sokolov had always chalked that up to jealously or competitiveness but maybe those individuals _had_ been on to something...

"Did Kuryakin state his reasons for taking the girl?" Sokolov asked, even more anxious to get to the bottom of this mystery.

"Not explicitly. He said he needed her for further questioning, Sir. It seemed odd but it was not the first time the KGB had determined their authority held precedence over a case."

 _Usurped our power_ , the man wanted to say. The Stasi were used to authoritarian control over their small part of the world and resented anyone stepping on their toes, even by the agency they were modeled after. Sokolov let it go.

"And he never arrived at Karlhorst?" he confirmed again as the German shook his head.

"No."

Sokolov removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. 

"What the hell is he up to...?" he murmured more to himself than the man standing in front of him.

"There is a way to find out rather quickly Comrade."

Sokolov looked up, happy to hear any suggestions that could clear up this mess before the CIA or MI6 found out about it...if they didn't know already...or worse, any of the infernal Western media outlets that would throw money at such a man for a story that was sure to sell papers and make the Eastern Bloc look even more ill-fated than it already was. 

"I'm listening," he encouraged.

"There is a long range tracking device we can tap into...now that we know Colonel Kuryakin has ulterior motives, whatever they may be."

"You slipped a device onto him?" Sokolov asked, somewhat impressed but also perturbed at the lieutenant's gall to track a KGB agent without explicit orders. 

"No. The girl is carrying the device. Or at least one she thinks is her own. Provided they stay together we'll be able to follow them...with your permission of course..."

It seemed the Stasi were useful for something at least. He leaned to see through the crack in Gorbachev's door. The man was still in a heated conversation on the phone which showed no signs of abating. He would not be pleased with this news.

"Track him," Sokolov ordered, "find out where he is going and have him apprehended. He will then be returned to Moscow so we can find out what the hell is going on."

Werned nodded, clearly pleased he had been given the green light to find the man. 

"I'm sending two of my own agents," the Russian added. "If he leaves the GDR, my agents will continue on alone." 

Werner opened his mouth to protest, but silenced himself begrudgingly when Sokolov raised his hand.

"I'm not having this turn into a traveling circus Lieutenant Werner. I want things dealt with quietly. There is enough happening here as is...last thing we need is for anyone to catch wind that one of our colonels has gone rogue."

"And the girl?" Werner asked.

Sokolov shrugged. 

"If she can be apprehended as well, fine. I'd be curious to know about her association with Kuryakin, but the colonel is our main concern. I don't want this turning into another Gordievsky disaster."

He picked up the phone on the desk to call in his agents to join the Stasi officer.

"Sentencing another colonel to death for treason _in absentia_ won't do," he said as the phone rang. "It will be much better to have this one present for the formalities."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies it took me soooo long to update. IDK what it was about this chapter that was so difficult to just sit down and write...but here it is!
> 
> Gordievsky, the colonel mentioned at the end, was a notorious KGB defector who secretly worked for the British SIS from 1974 until 1985, when he escaped from Russia to Finland in the boot of a car. He got asylum in the UK but he had an outstanding death sentence in the USSR. He still lives in the UK, despite almost being poisoned a few years ago...so he's still not a popular guy with the Russians.
> 
> I was watching Charlie Rose (or rather, listening to him, as he is on almost 90% of waking hours in my house...Thanks to Mr. DunkinLove) and he was interviewing (I think) the editor of The Economist who was talking about Putin's days in the KGB and that there were two major types of KGB agents in the late 80's: the external-facing, international, 'glamorous' [his words] KGB agents who were closely aligned with Gorbachev and his more liberal agenda and those that were more akin to state police, not dissimilar to the Stasi, who were considered to be lower-tier and little more than goons. Putin was one of these in Dresden at the time of this story. I wanted to make a distinction that I believe Illya would be the first type...
> 
> I am finally more active on my Tumblr account so if you're on there [give me a follow](http://nostalgicexpatriate.tumblr.com/). ALSO there is a new gallya blog on Tumblr focusing mainly on kink prompts, called [GallyaKink](http://gallyakink.tumblr.com/tagged/answered/) so if you are looking for something a little more _mature_ , I def recommend checking them out as well. I *may* also answer a prompt here or there.... ;)
> 
> отец - Father  
> ба́тя - Dad
> 
> I use the acronym GDR quite a bit. In case you aren't familiar that means 'German Democratic Republic' and is the formal name for East Germany....even though it wasn't actually democratic. You will also sometimes see DDR which is just German for the same name _Deutsche Demokratische Republik_ (not Dance Dance Revolution...)


	10. Weeping Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Illya and Ana arrive at the border.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so sorry this took sooo long to update. I have a variety of excuses ranging from the holidays to work, but perhaps the most infuriating was my laptop's keyboard crapping out on me as soon as my writer's block broke...Never buy a Dell!
> 
> Hopefully I make up for my absence with this ridiculously long chapter. Once again, not every scene is happening at same time.
> 
> Anyway, here it is. Enjoy your melodrama.

"I still cannot believe either of you!" Gaby growled as she exited the train station, unsuspecting Viennese pedestrians parting way at her seething rage. Her young German companion followed close behind but just far enough out of striking distance, hand rubbing the growing knot on the side of his head.

"How absolutely _asinine_ could two people be?!" she snapped at him from over her shoulder.

Gaby's worry and anxiety were temporarily side-tracked by the fury she had felt since the moment Napoleon told her Ana was going to Berlin and Tobias made a convenient whipping post for the actions of her foolhardy daughter. She did feel a twinge of regret when she saw his pained expression. Toby would certainly have a lump after the wallop she had dealt him with her purse when she first saw the young man in the train station in Vienna. She sometimes forgot how heavy the accumulated contents of the handbag could get, but it was a halfway decent tool for bludgeoning when the mood struck. 

"We did not think it would grow violent," he defended as he quickened his pace to keep up with her. "Up until then the Monday demonstrations had been peaceful-"

He stumbled to a halt when Gaby whipped about, handbag ready to respond to his excuses.

"But, _ja_ ," he admitted, hands up in placation, "overall it was stupid decision in retrospect..." 

Gaby lowered her arm, but her irritation still seethed.

"Stupid, doesn't even begin to describe it!" 

Tobias followed Gaby to the hotel she had booked only a few hours prior to flying to Vienna. The contents of her luggage were laid out on the bed. She resumed packing her most necessary essentials into a knapsack; something small and light enough for her to carry a long distance.

"I'm going to Eisenstadt, on the border," she explained as Toby watched. "East Germans have been traveling along Lake Neusiedl to enter Austria. If - _when_ \- they leave Hungary, it will be there."

She removed a small piece of paper from her wallet and handed it to Tobias.

"This is the number and address for the British Embassy. They know I'm staying here. I want someone to be here in case we don't cross paths."

Toby looked up from the note in shock.

"I'm not going with you?" he asked, mildly offended.

"The last thing we need is for you to get caught again," Gaby chastised. "You don't want to end up wherever they took your cousin; in prison waiting to be sold to the West, if he was lucky. Some uranium mine if he wasn't..."

The young man's face contorted with concern and she felt the twinge of guilt again.

"I'm sorry Toby," Gaby said sincerely, "that was harsh. I hope he's okay, and that you'll get word from him soon."

He gave a solemn nod, the skin around his eye still deep purple from a savage punch. She knew he already expected the worst.

"I should still go with you," he insisted. "It's better not to travel alone."

"I'll be fine," Gaby said as she unloaded a small pistol from her suitcase.

"A gun?" Tobias asked, taken aback as she packed the firearm into the side pocket of her bag along with two loaded magazines. 

"Well I certainly hope I don't have to use it." Gaby looked at him with a curious twitch to her brow. "Have you ever shot a gun before Tobias?" 

He thought and shrugged sheepishly. "I've shot clay pigeons."

Gaby huffed, but her lips quirked with amusement, quickly matched by her young companion. 

"That's what I thought."

She finished packing the bag with the conservative efficiency of someone who spent their early life ever ready to flee at a moment's notice. 

"Frau Teller-" Tobias hesitated. 

"Tobias, for the dozenth time, please just call me 'Gaby'," she insisted with an exasperated sigh. "Firstly, I'm not married, secondly...you make me sound a thousand years old..."

He blushed slightly and cleared this throat, gathering the courage to ask something.

"Gaby...you said 'when _they_ leave Hungary'. How do you know this man...this, KGB agent? How would you have even come across such a person?"

Gaby straightened and considered the young man. She appreciated his candour but she wasn't about to reveal the truth quite yet. She patted him on the cheek affectionately like he was a son she never had. He certainly looked the part. 

"I know we must seem ancient and outdated to you," Gaby said lightly, "but don't assume that just because someone is a parent they didn't have a full life before children and a few secrets of their own."

Toby nodded again and looked for a moment like he might press her for the truth but instead he just asked, "Aren't you afraid to go back?" 

"No," she said slowly, seriously. "Maybe at one time I would have. Nothing could have convinced me to go back behind that Wall. But now? No, I can't be afraid."

She didn't have the luxury to be afraid, not this time, she thought.

"Besides, I don't plan on being seen, crossing over or coming back," her lips quirking a she adjusted the pack. "It will be as if I was never there."  
___

Ana didn't like the way the woman in the guest house looked at them. She was getting used to the self-preserving scepticism that most people behind the Iron Curtain employed when meeting strangers, but there was something about the woman's calculating glance from Ana to her father that made her feel uneasy. A paranoid observer could only assume she was matching a checklist of descriptors in her head to the two people who had just walked through her front door. 

They were less than a few miles from the Hungarian-Austrian border but being well past nightfall they would have to wait until the early hours before they could make the off-road trek along Lake Neusiedl to the other side. The only lodging in the small town was inconspicuous enough but now Ana knew she would have felt more comfortable if they had just slept outside in the elements.

Her father's solicitude didn't help. Ever since leaving Prague he had thrown more uneasy looks over his shoulder than she would have cared to have noticed. Ana convinced herself it was likely just the anxiety that came with the magnitude of his decision; knowing now that it was not only Ana who was returning to the West. When he had seen Ana's concern he would engage his mask of calm reassurance and command, sometimes even smiling lightly at her.

Maybe she was just being paranoid. 

Upstairs in the small guest room, Ana peered out the window onto the street below them, a halo of yellow light from the street lamp illuminated the empty road. It flickered wildly, went dim for a moment before casting a steady glow once again.

"We should leave tonight," Ana said. Her breath fogging the cool window pane.

Ana half expected Illya to object and attempt to put her mind at ease, but he remained silent as he considered what she had suggested. She wasn't alone in feeling agitated.

"We do not have a map or even compass to assist us and we will need to stay off the roads," he said quietly, "we may not find the path and even if we do it could be through marsh and difficult to follow in darkness."

"I feel like we're being followed," she admitted suddenly. She had no proof, of course. They hadn't seen any tails since Dresden and their path through Czechoslovakia had been unpredictable even to them. Regardless, there was an unmistakable even instinctual feeling that they were not out of the woods yet. It gnawed at the back of her mind and wouldn't allow her to indulge in any peace until they were far away from this place. 

Illya nodded in agreement and her skin prickled with cold sweat. It was one thing for an inexperienced young woman to feel apprehensive about the threat of pursuit, it was entirely another for a professional spy with decades of experience to agree with the sentiment. 

Her father opened his mouth to respond when the phone downstairs rang. Ana and Illya froze. They remained still as they listened to the soft murmuring below and then silence. 

"Now," Ana whispered. "Please let's leave now."

Illya nodded curtly again, handing Ana her camera bag and securing his gun back in his holster. They couldn't very well leave through the front door. Even if the woman running the lodge wasn't an informant it would only be a matter of time before someone came to question her on the whereabouts of two people fitting their description.

Illya popped open the window and gauged the distance to the ground below. It was a short fall into the narrow lane between the two neighboring houses but just far enough that a poorly executed drop could blow a joint.

Without a word Illya crawled out the window, legs first, hands gripping the sill until he was dangling his full length before dropping to the pavement. He landed with a heavy thud but on his feet and uninjured despite his age. Ana peered out the window to see her father looking up expectantly.

She tossed her camera bag to him and backed out the window in turn, hands scrabbling at the weathered sill her, wrist aching from the pull of her own weight. She released and dropped, her fall eased by the arms of her father below.

When she was steady on her feet Illya grabbed her hand and led her down the lane toward the western edge of the village. 

Just as they were to exit the lane to cross the sleepy village road a pair of blinding high beams rounded a corner, drenching the street with the incessant brilliance of a guard tower searchlight. Illya pulled Ana into the shadowed shelter of a nook just off the lane. As the car passed they peered around the corner to see it pull to the side of the road with the faint squeak of shot brakes. 

When the engine died two men exited the vehicle. There were no uniforms in sight but Ana now knew that casual clothes did not guarantee safety.

One of the men disappeared around the street corner heading, Ana was dismayed to see, in the direction of the guest lodge's front entrance. The remaining man lit a cigarette and waited near the car, the flame of the lighter briefly illuminating his face. Illya stiffened beside Ana. 

He slowly backed away and tugged at Ana's jacket sleeve, leading her back down the lane before turning onto an even narrower alley between the back gardens of a row of houses. He strode quickly, pulling her along while avoiding rubbish bins and gardening tools. He had recognised whoever was back there. They had travelled all this way from Germany but they were still being followed.

"How could they have found us?!" Ana whispered beside him. 

"They are tracking us," Illya hissed, "just as they were in Dresden. The device was not in the car."

"Then where is it?!" 

Illya stopped abruptly and reached into his jacket pocket. Ana watched as he opened his palm to reveal her mother's ring and its silver chain. He slipped the ring onto the smallest finger of his right hand before making a fist and punching the brick wall beside them, cracking open the plastic orb of the faux pearl. In the dim light from the distant street lamps they saw the glint of copper wire. 

" _Cука_ ," he grunted. "New."

"That's not yours." Ana knew the story behind the ring, how her mother had received it. She had found the story endearing, but now surely it would rankle thanks to the work of the Stasi.

"No," he confirmed, picking out the device, dropping it to the ground and smashing it on the pavement with the heel of his boot.

Checking to make sure the area was deserted, Ana and Illya crossed the last intersection leading out of the village and into the forest beyond. They kept off the road but followed alongside it in the brush, hoping they were roughly on the path that the refugees had used for the past several months to escape into Austria.

It was slow going. The forest floor was strewn with downed limbs, thick autumn foliage and clinging vines that they could scarcely see in the dim moonlight filtering through the trees. They only knew to head west as quickly as their tripping feet would carry them through the darkness and to the border.

Ana panted with exertion and fear, eyes straining to see the ground below her. Her focus on moving forward and westward was so great that she didn't hear the purring engine coming up the road behind them and she gasped in surprise when Illya pulled her down into a crouch on the damp ground.

The headlights drenched the tree trunks around them before passing by. They watched as the car slowed to loiter down the road. 

Car doors slammed shut as the men exited onto the road. One turned on a torch and scanned their surroundings. A quiet voice carried over to them, one man instructing the other.

"Come," Illya whispered and, crouching, pulled her further into the forest and away from the road. 

The distance they could put between themselves and the men on the road was limited as they came across the bank of the lake. The ground was sopping wet, the mud sucking at their boots with each step but they turned and kept westward. Each snapping branch seemed as deafening as a gunshot to Ana, alerting anyone in the area to their whereabouts. She feared that the pounding of her heart in her chest alone could be heard within a mile's radius.

Along the lake they could pick up their pace, the reflection of the moon off the calm surface assisting them, revealing worn paths and stable footing. Ana dared to hope that they had lost their pursuers when a voice called out, disconcertingly close behind them. They dodged into a batch of reeds, Illya lifting his head as high as he dared to listen.

A sharp command, clear and distinct.

Russian.

Ana's fingers dug into her father's forearm. He looked down at their feet and cursed under his breath. Their prints were fresh and they had been found.

He nodded toward the forest and they took off into the brush. Branches and weeds whipped at Ana's legs as she ran. They both caught their feet under a rotted log, tripping and biting back curses before pulling each other up. They had to keep going.

The clinging undergrowth disappeared beneath their feet when they came upon a grassy expanse extending several metres before them into the night. A dark pattern of lines and posts came into view before them as they approached and Ana almost cried out in relief.

The Iron Curtain here was little more than a shoddily maintained perimeter fence, but its coating of rusted barbed wire and slanted top was enough to deter climbing. The shadow of a guard tower loomed in the distance, dark and abandoned. No guards or dogs lurked. The border was no longer being patrolled or managed but its structures remained, acting as one last infuriating hurtle before the safety of the West. 

They ran along the fence, searching for any break in the seemingly endless wall of wire and posts. They were well off the path used by the refugees and whatever breach in the fence they had been using to pass through. Illya and Ana were as trapped as they had been in Berlin.

“I thought they were dismantling this!” she said in disbelief. “How do we get through?” 

They heard a shout erupt from the darkness of the woods behind them. Far enough away for the moment but in a matter of minutes their pursuers would be upon them, in an open clearing with a wall blocking their escape.

"We need to head back into the forest," Ana gasped.

Illya stopped and looked at the fence, eyes darting and calculating.

"No," he responded definitively. "You are not going back there." 

He reached out and tentatively touched the wiring of the fence, gripping it firmly when no electrical current ran through his arm. He pulled sharply at the wiring, breaking the rusted cord away with a dry crack from the weathered wooden post where it had been anchored. With his boot he stomped down on the wire below, pulling them just far enough away to make a small opening.

Illya removed his jacket and stuffed it into the hole, draping it along to cover the barbs. 

"Crawl through," he ordered. 

Ana dropped down and stuck her head through the opening, carefully avoiding the barbs around her. Her shoulders were grazed and bits of her hair caught but she managed to get her upper body through, her hands gripping Austrian soil on the other side. Her father pressed down further on the wires with his boot while pushing her waist through and along the wires, twisting her body in the narrow gap. A barb left a long rent on her jacket and into the skin of her side but she slipped safely through. He stuffed her bag in after her.

Ana jumped to her feet on the other side, pulling her sleeves over her hands and yanking up on the wires, kicking lower to create a wider opening. Her breathe came fast, from anxiety but also from impending excitement. They were so close, only a few rusted wires needed to be conquered.

"We need it a bit wider," Ana panted, pulling with all the force she could muster. "We just need to get your shoulders through and the rest will be alright."

Her father straightened upright, removed his jacket from the opening and put it back on. Ana stopped and looked up in shock.

"What are you doing?!" Ana demanded, 

There were voices just beyond the tree line over Illya's shoulder. He glanced over and back to Ana. "There is a town no more than two kilometers west from here, and then only a short ride to Vienna-" he said with an authoritative insistence.

Ana felt the blood drain from her face, despair curdling in her stomach at the meaning of his words.

"No!" she reached through the fence and grabbed the fabric of his jacket. "No, no, no! I'm not leaving you here!"

His hand gently wrapped around her wrist and he shook his head. One man called to another in Russian.

"Do this for me, yes?" he asked softly, hand passing between the wires to brush her hair away from her face with shaking fingers. 

She shook her head back at him manically, her fingers gripping his. Tears stung her exhausted eyes, burning at her cheek when he pulled away. 

"Please don't!" she sobbed trying in vain to capture him again. He took several steps back but kept her gaze, studying her from a short distance with a longing sadness. 

From the tree-line the beam of a torch illuminated the ground several meters down the clearing. It travelled along the fence, closing in on them as Illya backed away.

"Illya," Ana begged, hardly above a whisper, willing him not to leave her.

Her father broke eye-contact when he was doused in the yellow light of the approaching torch. Two of the men shouted for their discovery. "Go!" Illya barked before turning to run back toward the forest and away from their pursuers. 

Ana choked back the urge to cry for him as he dodged out of the light's beam, bobbing now as its handler broke into a sprint. The men were gaining ground quickly, no longer inhibited by the forest undergrowth. Ana searched the distant darkness through her tears but saw no sign of her father. She directed her attention to the agents with a surge of anger and irrepressible frustration.

Ana ran along her side of the fence toward them.

"Hey!" she shouted through the fence and over the clearing. "Over here!"

The Russian with the light skidded to a halt and redirected the beam at Ana. She squinted, temporarily blinded as her pupils contracted. Gripping the wires, she snarled through the fence. 

"Where are you going?!" she taunted in her schoolroom Russian. "I'm right here."

The man approached her, the light growing more intense, unwavering from her face. Dark spots danced before her eyes. She could hear his steps getting closer but she didn't back away from the fence. She wanted to distract him as much as she wanted the opportunity to spit in his face. 

He was within a few feet when a shout carried over the clearing.

Her agent called back, light still in her eyes, _девушка_. The girl. The immediacy of his voice made her release the fence and prepare to lunge backward, if needed.

Another insistent shout carried over to them. Ana couldn't make out the words, but the light stayed on her a moment longer before the man gave an irritated tsk and turned away. 

Plunged back into darkness, Ana blinked her swollen eyes as she watched the light trail away in pursuit of her father. She gripped the fence with her bare hands and shook it in frustration, the wires clattering as barbs pricked the soft skin of her palms. 

"Come back! I'm right here!" she cried, even though she knew they wouldn't return. She was the lesser of the two fugitives; only a girl who had foolishly gotten herself into trouble in East Berlin. Beyond the border, she was more trouble than she was worth. They were far more interested in their erstwhile comrade, just as Illya had predicted.

With a broken sob Ana turned and ran back along the fence in their wake, stumbling over uneven ground. She stubbornly refused to leave her father to his fate. She had to find a way back over to the other side, even if it meant her capture. She couldn't leave him alone, not after a lifetime of separation and heartache, one she had almost committed him to for the remainder of his days.

The light from the torch had disappeared into the forest, but now and again a shout burst from the darkness. Ana cut short at particularly weakened segment of the fence where shorn wires curled away from their post. She knelt to the ground and edged her way underneath as the shouting grew more insistent, closing in to a focal point in the inky blackness. Ana clawed at the ground as the wires pulled at the fabric on her shoulders, holding her back. 

She froze when the first gunshot split the air, instinctively flattening herself to the ground with the second. Her heart hammered against the dirt, her breathe caught in her throat when a third shot was fired. She wanted to scream, tear herself from the wires even if it meant leaving her skin behind, but she was immobilized by grief. _He's dead_ was her first coherent thought, seeping through her with a bitter coldness.

Like before, her misery warped into anger that she felt ticking in every limb and deep into her core. She struggled violently in the wires, pulling forward and wrenching herself back to break free, only succeeding in entangling herself further. 

Ana collapsed in exhaustion when the silence overtook her. The voices had retreated. There wasn't the barest hint of life in the forest or clearing save for her own ragged breathing. She turned to her side, tears caking with the dirt against her skin. She shifted with her first consuming sob grimacing when a barb bit at her neck and she was prodded in her hip from underneath.

Ana grimaced as she gingerly reached the hand of her entangled arm into her pocket and felt the coolness of metal and leather worn smooth. A delicate chain brushed against her fingertips. She closed her hand around both and finally let defeat overtake her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to end it there but this chapter was already too long at 4000 words.
> 
> The Hungarian/Austrian border, unlike the Inter-German border, was much less militarized and was essentially just a 150 mile stretch of electrified, barbed wire fence. No mines, no booby-traps and when the Hungarians stopped maintaining it you could easily cross if you knew where the breaches were.


	11. Running to stand still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ana returns West

She needed her mother.

The repetitive demand of childlike need had been running through her head since first light. Speaking it now brought a wash of relief while increasing her anxiety tenfold. She needed her mother, now. She had to do something.

Her mother would be there soon, the consular officer assured her in an exasperated tone, clearly at wits' end with this strange girl that had stumbled across the border. Ana nodded blankly as the officer left to retrieve her new passport, the fake Russian version laid discarded in the waste bin still marked with her father's writing.

Ana had been numb to the chastising she had received when she arrived, exhausted and bedraggled, at the grand Neo-Renaissance embassy just off the Belvedere gardens in Vienna. A tampered passport and a narrowly missed diplomatic debacle were the least of Ana's concerns but she couldn't tell any of these people the magnitude of what had happened behind the Curtain. Not until her mother was there.

Ana released the watch on her wrist and wrapped her hand around the muscle of her upper arm and squeezed. It ached from the tetanus shot the resident doctor had administered after inspecting the wounds left by the fence's rusted barbs but it was nothing compared to what she felt in her chest. The pain her hand brought was inexplicably comforting.

The day had started bright and crisp and much more beautiful than it had any right to be. Sunlight had revealed softly rolling country marred only by the perimeter fence under an intense and cloudless blue sky that had made Ana's tired eyes wince with discomfort. The forest had been filled with the songs of migrating birds so peaceful and commonplace that she had difficulty believing this was the same place where, a mere hours before, she had been so terror stricken and desperate for escape. There was no fear in the morning, only a numbness as she came to terms with her reality and a consuming guilt that putrefied within her.

The first dawn light had allowed Ana to disentangle herself from the barbs buried in her clothing. Her jackets was a mess of torn fabric and blood stained holes. She had stumbled her way along the perimeter fence for a half mile before she came upon a flattened section, the barbs cut and the wooden beams felled as though driven over by a large vehicle, the grass beneath thin and worn by the traffic of travelers passing through. A small shrub nearby twinkled and chimed lightly in the breeze with keys left behind by those escaping to the West. Keys to homes, apartments and cars gladly given up for a chance at freedom.

They had been so close, she had realised then. If they had found this gateway to the West last night would they both be safe now? Would they have been followed anyway?

Ana had crossed over back into Hungary, against her better judgment, unsure of what she was dreading to find on the other side. Backtracking a half mile she found the same section of forest she and her father had ran through the night before. Her footsteps had crunched softly as she searched the forest floor, the mottled sunlight above her head turning the canopy iridescent orange, yellow and blood red.

Every rotted log and mound of decaying foliage had been a potential body left in the forest for her to collect. Her search had failed to reveal anything so gruesome, leaving her both relieved and panicked, suddenly aware of how much time had passed since she had last seen her father. When the glint of metal in sunlight had drawn her eye and she crouched to find a brass shell lying in the underbrush. Fresh powder had left faint black on her fingertips and she was sickened by the thought of where the bullet may have landed.

Ana looked at her hands now, clean but damaged, the bandaging her father had applied still wrapped snug about her wrist. She hadn't allowed the doctor to remove it. She scrunched her eyes as tears threatened to overflow. Ana calmed herself with a shuddering breath when the door opened.

Ana gasped and shot to her feet. A dark head appeared around the door, but not that of her mother. She felt a stab of disappointment but she ran to Tobi regardless, reveling in the comfort of being enveloped by someone she trusted.

"You're okay," he said, his voice ringing with relief, muffled in her hair. "I was so worried."

She squeezed him tighter, hoping she wasn't pressing on his bruises.

"We should never have gone there. I'm sorry."

Ana shook her head against his shoulder as he apologised again and again. The idea had been hers. Everything that had happened was her own fault.

He pulled away to look at the marks on her face, the bandaging on her hands and wrist. His own face was still healing from their ordeal in Berlin. They were an abused mess of scrapes and mottled skin.

"I'm fine," she tried to smile. "Physically, I'm fine." He had no idea what she had actually lost and was still too hesitant and scared to tell him, especially within the walls of the embassy.

"Is my mother coming?" She asked, restless.

Tobi looked around the small room as though just noticing at that moment that they were alone.

"She went to the border yesterday," he said, his voice a mixture of confusion and dawning concern. "Near a town called Eisenstadt. She said that's where the refugees came through..."

"I didn't see anyone." The countryside had all but been abandoned and the little town wasn't much better. She was lucky she found someone with enough sympathy to buy her a train ticket to Vienna. No one had been waiting for her.

"Come on, we'll go back to her hotel," Tobi said, seeing Ana's growing concern. "She'll be back as soon as she realises she missed you. Your uncle is on his way too."

New passport in hand, Ana and Tobi made their way through the Viennese boulevards back to her mother's hotel. The smell of apfelstrudel drifting out of passing cafés failed to brighten her shadowed eyes, her mind still far away in dark forests and rusted prison cells. She could feel Tobi's hesitant sideways glances. He knew she was holding back but dared not ask her to confide in him until she was ready, and certainly not in public.

Back in the hotel Ana sat in a near stupor as Tobi looked on helplessly watching her fiddle with the wristwatch that had appeared on her arm.

"The man who found you in Berlin..." he said slowly, cautiously, "your mother knew him?"

Ana's eyes focused and she looked up at him, unable to answer him but unwilling to lie.

"Tobi, it's..." she rasped at his hurt look, "I can't-"

"It's okay," he assured softly. "But if you ever change your mind..."

She mustered a small smile as he went about righting the room, noticing she had no bag with her.

"I will get you new clothes," he said with German pragmatism. "You should rest, for when your mother arrives."

When Tobi left Ana went to the bathroom to wash up. She attempted to inspect her wounds in the mirror but she could hardly look at her reflection, not only for the sheer contempt she felt for herself and her actions but because now every time she saw her face all she could see were her father's blue eyes. Were his now lifeless and staring up from the murk of a river bottom, she wondered, or closed forever in some shallow grave? The thoughts were disturbing and incessant, pushing her to the point of near physical sickness.

She turned off the light and walked out of the bathroom when the phone rang. Ana ran to it and picked up the receiver. Her voice breaking as she answered.

"Mum?!"

"Ana?" an American voice replied, ringing with relief. "Hold on. I'm coming up."

Ana hung up, once again both relieved and disappointed in equal measures. A few moments later there was a knock on her door. Napoleon entered and she hugged him on impulse, grateful to be with someone who knew Illya. Someone who knew the truth.

"What do you know?" he asked without preamble, setting down a suitcase.

"Everything," she said, voice barely above a whisper.

He nodded solemnly, taking in her haggard appearance, the exhaustion in her voice.

"Where is your mother?"

"She went to meet us at the border," Ana said, miserable, wanting nothing more than for her mother to be there. "I didn't know and I missed her."

Napoleon's eyes lingered on the watch around her wrist.

"Where is Illya?"

 _Illya_. Suddenly everything was real and Ana's willpower dissolved at the sound of her father's name, breaking down in a fit of tears she had been holding back since she extracted herself from the fence. She told Napoleon the entire story without him even needing to ask. She told him about her arrest and meeting Illya, their escape from East Germany and her finding out the truth about his identity. Ana could hardly relay the details of their separation at the border.

"It's all my fault, everything," she sobbed. "If I hadn't been so stubborn - _stupid_ \- when my mother wanted to tell me."

She wiped the tears away, the salt burning in her cuts. She looked up to her uncle who was more somber than she had ever seen him.

"We were so close," she whispered in a helpless voice.

Napoleon sat beside her at the foot of the bed. She couldn't lean against him even though she wanted to. She didn't deserve comfort, especially not from someone who had been her father's friend.

"It was never going to be easy Ana," Napoleon sighed. "If you had made it this far together that would not have been the end of it. Even if you had met earlier and he agreed to defect, they would still hunt him."

He watched her wiping her tears with her sleeve before remembering the handkerchief in his pocket.

"There was always the possibility of something like this happening," Napoleon admitted, offering her the linen square. "Both of your parents knew that. They were prepared for it."

Ana tried to nod in understanding but the tears began to overflow once again when she thought of all that her parents had sacrificed without even the guarantee of a happy and peaceful outcome. Unable to stop herself she leaned into Napoleon, the CIA agent who somehow, in the midst everything, ended up being the closest thing she ever had to a father.

"Now what do we do?" she asked into his shoulder after she had calmed.

"Let's just hope everything goes to hell in a hand-basket," Napoleon murmured against her ear.

Ana pulled away. "What do you mean?"

"The Eastern Bloc is falling apart," he pointed out. "Much more quickly than any of us expected. I'd haggard a guess that Illya won't be the only high ranking KGB officer to try to go rogue in the coming months. They're probably lining up outside Western embassies in every country offering to sell their secrets so they can get the hell out of dodge."

"But if they already have him...or worse-" Ana worried.

"That's what I need to find out," Napoleon said, standing to retrieve his suitcase.

"You?" Ana asked, incredulous.

"Of course," Napoleon said as he rummaged through the case. Ana noticed his luggage contained more electronic gadgets than clothing, packed tightly and efficiently. "I've invested over twenty years in this mess. Don't think I'm going to back out now."

"But what about my mother? You're going to wait here for her to return, aren't you?"

"If I know your mother -and I do- she's going to figure out what happened on her own and try to resolve it on her own. That's why I need to leave, and soon."

Ana looked on panic-stricken as he retrieved a pad of paper from the contents of his case.

"She's not coming back?" she asked with shock and a slight bit of outrage. "I'm not going with you?! I can't just stay behind waiting for you!"

Napoleon gave a quick bark of dry laughter. "If I take you straight back into the lion's den they'll have me murdered and make it look like an accident," he said with a hint of his familiar humour returning. His implied belief that Illya was still alive lifted Ana's spirits a bit. "Besides, I work better alone...with few exceptions."

Napoleon walked back over to her, handing her the small but dense pad of paper with plain numerical text

"Take this," he said. "It's a Vernam cipher, a one-time pad like the the kind-"

"I remember," Ana said with a touch of surprise. "The game with the numbers."

When Ana had been a child and old enough to understand basic arithmetic, Napoleon would keep her entertained with number games in which she would decode small messages using a pad of paper and a written key he had gifted to her. Ana had always assumed it was just a silly task to keep her entertained out of his hair. She never contemplated that it might have real-world applications, especially in regard to her uncle's career.

"Your mother will have a shortwave radio, probably in her room," Napoleon said, writing down a number. "Keep it on this frequency and switch it on every evening at 21:00 GMT."

"What will I listen for?" Ana asked, suddenly feeling out of her depth. Espionage may be the family trade but it certainly wasn't something that felt natural to her.

"I'll send a code, hopefully when all's clear with a rendezvous point. Start with the first line," Napoleon explained, indicating the pad.

Ana clutched the cipher in her hands a little put off by her uncle's casual description of his enigmatic and _one-way_ method of communication.

"What if something happens to you?" Ana countered. "I am just supposed to assume you're dead or imprisoned?"

"Nothing will happen to me," Napoleon assured with his familiar droll confidence.

Ana huffed and gave him a dull little look.

"Trust me, no one's after me," Napoleon reassured. "For _once_ , no one is after me. And no one is after your mother either."

"Not yet," Ana sighed.

Napoleon took her by the shoulders and looked down at her seriously.

"Go back to London and pretend like nothing happened," Napoleon ordered. "Go back to your lectures and don't say anything to anyone. Check the radio, but other than that resume your life just like it was before you left-"

"I don't know if I can," Ana admitted. How could she go back to how things were before, now that she knew the truth about her parents? With both of them now missing?

"You have to," Napoleon said with not a little bit of authority. She never knew him to be so pragmatic and in an odd way it gave her more comfort than any shoulder to cry on could.

As Napoleon prepared to leave Ana grabbed his arm, turning him about.

"Please bring him back," she pleaded.

Napoleon smiled with all his charm.

"He'll never be so happy to see me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I am SO SORRY this took me so long to update, and thanks to all of you who are still sticking around for this angsty ride to Criesville. I am absolutely shocked that this is my second most popular fic, especially since it's a gallya fic in which gallya hasn't featured at all...not even once (SPOILER***that will change next chapter!).
> 
> My lack of updates is not because I have lost interest in this series (I still think about/plan it all the time) but I think many authors of longer works can agree that the further along you go, the more you second guess your story and wonder if the ending is going worthy of the beginning / whether people who were fans at the start are still going to like it at the end (which is very counter-intuitive as readers are more likely to continue reading if the updates are regular, especially in a fandom that dwindles by the day) . So that is what is going on in case you were wondering.
> 
> Thanks again for any kudos/comments/subscriptions. The comments so far have been the #1 thing that has kept me going so thank you so much to those who have written a blurb here or there!
> 
> PS- I have said this before but I realise that the tenses in all my works change every goddamn chapter (and even within chapters). I have no excuse other than my editing is lazy and I'm not the best at the grammars.


	12. She's a Killer Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gaby takes matters into her own hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Advanced notice for some descriptions of physical violence.
> 
> This chapter jumps around a bit with current and past events. I hope it's not confusing for anyone.

Gaby approached the man standing in a bespoke suit in the middle of a Slovenian pine forest. He was a pillar of civilization in this wild place and a sight for very sore and weary eyes.

"How do you do it?" she wondered aloud, smiling in relief. 

"Do what?" Napoleon asked, turning around, her beacon in his hand. It had loyally sent out its signal at every opportunity she allowed it and it had summoned exactly what she was she had hoped for. 

"Look the way you do wherever you are," she said, coming to a stop before him. "Even after rolling down the steepest hill I had ever seen in the pouring rain you still looked better than most men on their wedding day."

"Maybe it's overcompensation for never having had a wedding day?" Napoleon teased, flicking the device off, silencing its imperceptible signal. "You kept moving. I was afraid I wasn't going to find you."

"Well you found me," Gaby said, indicating the endless columns of tall conifers surrounding them. "Our worst fears, finally come to pass."

He brushed her cheek with his thumb affectionately. She nudged him to follow her up a nearby deer trail.

"All those years of expecting something like this happen," Napoleon mused. "I would have been a bit disappointed if we never had a chance to put our plan into action."

Gaby huffed glumly. "This isn't exactly what I had planned. I'm in over my head and a bit worse for the wear," she turned to Napoleon, serious. "I'm very glad you're here."

Napoleon placed his finger under her chin and tilted her head up to reveal fading bruises marring her neck. Gaby brushed his hand away. He has seen far worse on her, but not in many years.

"What happened?"

Gaby sighed as they continued walking, rubbing her neck absentmindedly, relating the preceding days. 

_Gaby didn't know exactly what brought her to the border in the dead of night over a week ago. She had been restless and agitated in her guest room just across the Austrian border, waiting for sunrise before making the journey east. Something incessant had niggled at her mind however, chasing sleep away until she gave in to her instinctual urge to move, grabbing her bag and heading to the border crossing a short trek outside town._

_When she came across the semi-collapsed perimeter fence gaping out toward what looked like just dark forest beyond Gaby wondered what she was doing, blaming her unrelenting insomnia. Then, just as she was turning to head back into town she had heard gunshots._

"I was in the right place at the right time," she explained to Napoleon. "Or wrong place, depending on how you look at it."

_She ran at breakneck speed over grassy clearing and the flattened undergrowth beneath the trees until her feet made impact on the asphalt of a two-lane road that ran through the countryside forest. The roadside was a virtual junkyard of communist vehicles gladly abandoned by their owners once the border was in sight, doors left ajar in haste and boots opened, emptied of all worldly possessions._

_She stopped and listened to the night air, only to hear her own panting breaths and the chirp of the odd insect still clinging to life in the impending autumn chill. A distant shout spun her around in the road, facing the direction of the perimeter fence. Gaby plunged back into the forest, steps light and careful, tracking the only signs of human life in the dark landscape._

_Gaby crouched to a halt behind a moss-covered tree trunk when she heard a body crashing through the undergrowth. Several metres ahead she could just make out a form in the darkness, hear his labored breathing and pained groans._

_"Kuryakin, where are you going old man?" another man called in Russian, a hint of amusement in his voice._

_Gaby froze and reached for the Browning pistol in her pocket._

_A second man arrived just behind the first, dark shadows laughing as the third-Illya-struggled to stay on his feet. Gaby's fingers itched on her pistol but it was too dark and the distance too great for her to take a shot without risk to Illya or herself._

_Illya swung at the closer of the two thugs but was quickly kneed in the abdomen, falling forward with pained grunt._

_"Now play nice Illyusha or I'll put a bullet in your head and go after that girl by the fence instead," the taller of the two men said, standing over him. Illya remained on his knees still gasping for air._

_"Then what Vitaly?" Illya finally managed, coughing. "You'll return to Moscow with a girl and my corpse? Continue your reputation of fucking up every mission you have been given?"_

_Illya was swiftly kicked in the stomach, groaning again, Gaby's nails digging into her palm to keep herself from jumping out from behind the stump._

_“I look forward to hearing what is done to you in the basement of the Lubyanka, Kuryakin,” the first man spat. "Restrain him," he said to his partner, who complied and pushed Illya face first into the dirt before jerking his hands behind his back, tying them with quick movements._

_The man named Vitaly knelt beside Illya's head, obscured by the tree trunk. Gaby heard a brief muffled noise before Illya's legs stopped kicking in the leaf litter. "That's better," he mumbled. "Get him to the car."_

_Gaby rose slowly to a crouch, backing away from the stump. An errant twig snapped underfoot._

_She froze._

_"Did you hear that?" the younger of the two men asked in alarm._

_Gaby remained stock-still, hoping her distant hunched frame would blend in with the darkened forest growth. She waited, feeling her heart pounding in her chest as the men listened to the forest around them._

_"Just an animal," the older man concluded. "Come here and help me lift this huge fucker."_

_The men stumbled and grunted as they hoisted Illya's unconscious body between them. Gaby estimated her likelihood of taking one down before the other could reach for his gun, but she didn't like the odds, not in the current condition of near complete darkness._

_She quickly formulated another plan._

_As the men unconcernedly clamored through the woods Gaby retreated to the road with a quick stealth that had always come naturally to a woman of her slight frame. When she reached the road, she broke into a run in the opposite direction of the men, the pounding steps of her soft-soled shoes nearly soundless on the pavement._

_Further down, and just out of earshot she pulled open the door of an abandoned Wartburg, left unlocked to passersby in the grassy overgrowth of the curbside. She searched the seats and pulled down the visor when a pair of keys fell into her lap. She thanked the powers above and continued her silent prayers as she turned the ignition, hoping the engine would respond, and quietly._

_"Come on you piece of shit," Gaby hissed as the engine struggled to turn over._

_The little car awoke after a little protest. Gaby slapped the wheel in gratitude. The transmission groaned as she shifted gears and pulled out into the road, headlamps carefully left dark. She relied on the feel of the road and the little moonlight filtering through cloud cover to continue in the opposite direction of Illya's captors. She slowed when came across an intersection of two roads in the forest._

_She considered carefully and before quickly turning the car down the perpendicular roadway._

_Several metres away she turned the little Wartburg about and faced the intersection. The engine rattled quietly as Gaby waited, her hands sweaty on the steering wheel. She pulled the safety belt over her shoulder and tested the buckle with a tug._

_Distant headlamps illuminated the road in graying light as a car approached. Gaby released the parking break and moved into first gear. The lights of the agents' car flashed between tree trunks as it sped toward the intersection with Gaby's road. She waited until it was an appropriate distance away before accelerating as quickly as the Wartburg's three cylinders would allow._

_The two cars converged toward the intersection, one bright and unaware the other dark with intent, Gaby's hands handling the steering wheel in a death grip, fighting the instinct to slam on the brake pedal. She coasted into the intersection just as the other car passed through, willing her body to go lax and absorb the impact of her front end decimating the driver's side door of her target._

_Her windscreen exploded into a thousand pieces as her upper body was thrown forward into the wheel and then to the side as the car spun away from impact with a screech of rubber and a groan and compacting metal. She was next aware of the throbbing pain in her neck and shoulder, coughing from the fumes wafting from the steering column, the entire car tilted and steaming in a roadside ditch._

_Gaby mustered all her strength and fumbled for the belt release, opened her door and collapsed onto the cool grass lining the ditch. Her body protested, muscles cramping and joints aching from impact but she willed herself into action, needing to take advantage of the few disorienting moments she had over Illya’s abductors._

_She crawled out of the ditch on hands and knees eventually gaining her feet and limping over to the other vehicle, hissing and clicking across the road, belching acrid smoke from its smashed bonnet._

_Gaby tore open the door to the passenger side just as a dark-haired man with a patchy beard was coming around. He looked up dazed at Gaby but instinctively reached for the missing gun in his empty holster, thrown somewhere in the crash. Gaby smashed the butt of her pistol into his already bloodied temple, savagely beating him until he collapsed into the lap of his partner. Gaby inspected the driver, who was either unconscious or dead, his body littered with glass shards, his neck bent awkwardly over the seat back._

_Gaby grabbed the keys from the ignition and stumbled back to the boot, coughing from the blackening smoke. She unlocked the boot, petrified that she might find Illya inside with a broken neck or back. He lay crumpled to one side, still breathing, twitching with movement. She was relieved to see there was little evidence of fresh blood in the boot, just a drying stain on Illya's lower leg._

_Illya blinked in bewilderment as his eyes adjusted to the faint evening light, still recovering from the effects of chloroform when he saw Gaby standing over him. His eyes went wide and crinkled at the corners with recognition and Gaby huffed with relief._

_She leaned into the boot to tear the gag from his mouth._

_"It's okay," she breathed._

_Illya coughed and nodded as best he could, beginning to sit up when his face darkened in alarm._

_"Gaby!" he shouted_

_Gaby was thrown on her back, her head colliding on the pavement with a muffled crack when suddenly there were thick bloodied fingers around her throat choking the life from her. The driver's breath hissed and spurted angrily through bloody teeth as he loomed over her._

_She ignored the garbled Russian as she fumbled for her gun but the man’s knee blocked her access. Instead she reached up and attempted to gouge his eyes out with the nails of her thumbs. He extended his arms to get out of her reach and squeezed harder with his meaty hands._

_Gaby's vision faded at the edges when a huge dark form rammed into the man atop her. His hands came away and she gasped in air through her traumatized throat, lungs burning for oxygen._

_Gaby turned her head against the pavement and saw Illya stumbling to his feet, hands still tied behind his back as the driver, laying just beside her, scrambled to stand up. With an abrupt calmness, Gaby reached into her pocket, retrieved her pistol, aimed at the closest target and shot his kneecap off._

_The man collapsed onto his back with an agonized scream that was brought to a sickening end when Illya smashed the heel of his boot onto the man's exposed neck. He choked and sputtered as Illya watched from above before twitching into stillness._

_Gaby let her pistol wielding hand fall to her side and she stared up into the clouded night sky the road exposed in the tree canopy. The smell of engine oil and blood in the air made her feel oddly nostalgic._

_Illya nudged her with his boot. She looked up at him as he turned to indicate his bound hands._

_Gaby slowly got to her feet, still reeling from the shock of the crash. Despite her shaking fingers she untied Illya's hands and let the rope fall to the ground. He took her hands gently in his own once they were free._

_"Thank you," Illya said, breathless._

_Gaby choked back a laugh at the absurdity of the moment. "Anytime," she replied and then for confirmation, "Ana is safe?"_

_"Yes, she is beyond the perimeter fence," Illya said and Gaby sighed in relief. Illya looked at her in disbelief. "How did you know we would be here?"_

_"Ana told Tobi you were heading here...the rest was just luck," she shrugged. Illya squeezed her hand and Gaby stamped down the overwhelming feeling of affection mixed with gratitude and unavoidable apprehension. They had no time._

_She looked down at the body of the driver. "Help me get him back into the car."_

_They put the mangled body back in the driver's seat as best they could, leaving the scene for passerby and police to find in the morning._

_"There's no going back now," Illya said, looking at his murdered former comrades._

_"I suppose not, no," Gaby replied. "They could have just been victims of a hit and run?"_

_Illya looked at her dully. "With bullet wound in knee?"_

_Gaby shut the passenger-side door. "Let's hope the local police's forensics aren't that good." Illya still didn't look convinced so Gaby relented and returned to her own totaled and smoking vehicle to fetch her bag._

_She removed a matchbox, struck a match and tossed it into the pooling gasoline beneath the KGB agents' car. The fluid ignited with a swift burst of heat and light. Gaby and Illya retreated before the flames could reach the petrol tank._

_"Where to now?" Illya asked, limping alongside Gaby. She briefly eyed the wound on his leg as she inspected the abandoned cars they passed to see which seemed most promising for a long road journey._

_"Not Austria. I don't want to lead them straight to Ana once they come looking to find out whatever happened to your colleagues," she said, indicating the burning car behind her._

_Gaby came upon a promising Trabant, clearly a once prized possession of its previous owner, immaculate and well-kept. "Somewhere unexpected," she decided, opening the driver's door. Illya walked around the car and got in beside her before she pulled out onto the road and headed east._

"He's here with you?" Napoleon asked in astonishment. "And you decided to stay behind the Curtain?"

"For now," she said. "Or at least behind what's left of it. But you've always been good at stealing things out from under people's noses. That's why I'm glad you're here."

Napoleon followed her along the path and around a bend in the hillside until they came across a dilapidated stone and wood kozolec, hidden deep in the forest. 

"I bribed a doctor a few villages over to see him," Gaby explained before entering the old hayrack. "He isn't doing as well as I had hoped. It has slowed our travel."

Napoleon nodded, masking his concern as he followed her.

"It's me," she said aloud as she approached the building. "And Napoleon," she added. She pulled the creaky door aside and entered with Napoleon. Illya sat up from a pallet on the floor, looking pale but not entirely without strength. 

"Took you long enough Cowboy," Illya said to the American, but with a twitch of amusement and joy on his lips.

"I could say the same about you too Peril," Napoleon countered. "Only took you what? Twenty-five years to finally defect?"

The floor creaked as he walked over and sat beside Illya, glancing at the fresh bandages on his leg.

"How is Ana?" Illya asked with a touch of apprehension.

"She's back home safely," Napoleon said. Gaby could see the relief on Illya's face. For him, that was worth everything he had been through, knowing his daughter was finally out of harm's way. "Concerned for both of you, of course," Napoleon continued, "but she'll find out you're safe and sound in due course."

Gaby mustered a smile for Illya's sake, who looked hopeful even in his weakened state. 

"I never thought I'd say this," Illya grinned. "But I am very happy to see you Cowboy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've never been in a car crash, nor have I ever shot anyone's kneecap off and then murdered them so I have NO IDEA if any of this is realistic. Please feel free to educate me if any of the above is incorrect.
> 
> "Killer Queen" was actually written in 1974 so it's not technically an 80's song but there is something so quintessentially 80's about Queen/Freddie Mercury that I think it counts in this case. Plus I just really like that title to describe Gaby in this chapter, still kicking ass at 51 years old and also coming out of (yet another) car crash more or less unscathed.
> 
> Speaking of, if you love 80's music like I do, then definitely take a listen to the [Atomic Blonde soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDV9MbeKRA8) (the first song of which is Killer Queen). The movie is only okay, but the music is amazing.
> 
> Only one more chapter to go! Yay!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all,
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read, commented, liked and subscribed to this fic over the months and months I have been writing it. Unfortunately, I will not be finishing it. Simply put, I just don't really care about these characters or this movie anymore and as so much of life is already about making yourself do stuff you really don't want to do I'm not going to force myself to write something I'm just not into anymore in my limited free time. If I did, I don't think the writing would be that good anyway and it would be a disservice to the rest of this story which was written when I very much cared for these characters.
> 
> So for anyone who was curious about how this story was supposed to end, here is a brief synopsis; Ana receives a transmission from Napoleon naming a date and location. This was also going to happen the night the Berlin Wall fell. Ana travels to said location (...somewhere? never 100% decided) where she is reunited with the three. Everyone is happy, relieved, etc. Sadly, Illya is still on the run so he and Gaby go off together in secret, meeting up with Ana/Napoleon periodically until the Soviet Union dissolves in 1991 and they can finally come out of hiding. I initially planned on an epilogue taking place 5 years in the future (1994) where Gaby/Illya are in Berlin with their grandchild (Ana and Tobi off somewhere) and he proposes. Yay. The end. 
> 
> If anyone wants to write this, be my guest. Just leave a comment and I can add you as a guest writer. Otherwise...that's it. Sorry. Thanks again for reading.


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